How to Handle Your Divorce on Facebook and Twitter
Gucciardo Family Law has written about the relationship between social media and divorce before, but that was more of a PSA: social media use has been linked to divorce filing. Today, we’re going to bring you a bit more of ‘how-to’ guide on using social media wisely as the divorce process begins, proceeds, and ends.
Rule Number One of the Internet: Don’t Tweet Your Junk
In this case, we’re not talking about your unmentionables — we’re talking about all the crap going on in your life. No matter how frustrated, how exhausted, how depressed or furious or jubilant you are — a divorce is private. Just like your unmentionables. You don’t advertise what’s going on the world. The reason why is simple: anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Even the smallest offhanded comment can get twisted all out of proportion and turned into a fulcrum that your spouse can use to leverage the divorce agreement into their favor.
The best thing you can do in terms of posting, tweeting, Liking, and so on is to continue on exactly like you normally would if you weren’t getting divorced. (Exception: don’t ever post anything about money. Let their lawyers work for that information.) If you’re not that good of an actor/ess, go dark and stay there until the divorce is over.
How to Vent Safely
We understand that there are lots of people out there who depend on the Internet for their social support — and that’s totally OK. Just make sure that the parts of the Internet you turn to aren’t public. Don’t vent on social media; vent on a private (i.e. not Google-searchable) forum, or to a chatroom that doesn’t keep a log, or to a website like Muttr.com or D-Rant.com where everything is anonymous. Better yet, call someone you can trust and vent to them. Science says venting to a live person has a much better effect on your mood than venting online, anyway.
Dealing With Pre-Existing Evidence
If you’re concerned about a recently-filed divorce because you know that there is evidence online of some wrongdoing on your part, you might be able to help yourself. Start by taking down anything you put up that could incriminate you. Then, look for incriminating pictures posted by other people, and remove your name from the tags on those pictures. If there’s a decent reason, you can also Report the pictures (and ask your friends to do the same), and if you get a decent number of Reports, Facebook will remove the picture. (The same applies to text posts.) Similar mechanisms exist on all forms of social media.
In most circumstances in life, the rule is “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” When you’re getting divorced, the rule gets a lot shorter: it’s “Don’t say anything at all.” At least not on the social media.
Too much information?
We focus exclusively on family law matters so we are always available to answer your questions and help.
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