Facebook Divorce Rule No. 1: Don't Overshare

Like many things, the etiquette for dealing with marital troubles on Facebook isn’t exactly covered in the Terms of Service. And like any other Facebook action, Amanda Fortini writes, users would do well to think before they type. When a recently separated woman posted a status update reading “Going to pizza night and beyond,” she didn’t think how her soon-to-be ex would react—“I thought it was vague enough," she says. And what about his lawyers?

Yes, that awkward oversharing may be bad enough, but divorce lawyers have glommed onto Facebook as an “evidentiary gold mine,” Fortini writes on Salon. From incriminating pictures to “public disparagement,” your digital life could well haunt you in court. But legal advice aside, it led Fortini to wonder about the people behind the updates: Consider the case of one woman who entered, ‘He’s decided that he can’t stand me, he wants a divorce, we’ve only been married 5 months, I’m pregnant, he’s on the phone with his ex-wife right now, asking her to take him back.'" Clearly, hopping on Facebook—rather than leaving the house, or calling mom—was the thing to do.
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