Social media has become a major influence in most people’s daily lives.
Social media can affect marriages, and if a party is in the midst of a divorce, he or she should know social media can both help and harm them in family court.
How Social Media Can Help
Social media can be a treasure trove of evidence. What someone says on their own profile and the messages that they send to others can influence everything from payment of support to property division to custody matters.
Almost invariably there is some kind of useful evidence to be found on social media. People can generally find proof that someone is living an extravagant lifestyle, wasted marital assets, or conducted an affair.
The public and private social media records, including private messages and private posts, could help establish their character during the divorce.
How Social Media Can Hurt
What someone says and does online can potentially impact their divorce proceedings just as easily as what their spouse says could. The misuse of social media could even lead to defamation accusations if someone publicly makes statements about their spouse online.
If someone insists on having discovery access to their spouse’s social media records, it could require pages upon pages of documents to review, which can drastically increase the expense. The seriousness of the evidence available from a spouse’s social media pages can influence the strategy that they employ in their divorce.
Being aware of how social media can impact a divorce may help people make more thoughtful choices as they prepare for their divorce.
