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Facebook Divorce Rule No. 1: Don't Overshare

Divorcee, beware. His lawyer might be reading those posts

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 29, 2009 12:01 PM CDT

(Newser) – 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.

[Images (2)]

[Quotes (1)]

The happily friended Internet couple can become a sorry sight rather quickly. (AP Photo)

An unhappy couple. (Shutterstock)

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It cuts a lot of awkward conversations, because people already know I’ve gotten divorced. I don’t want to call people up and dump a bunch of shit on them, but I don’t mind if they know my life got screwed up. - Chad Post, on the joys of status updates

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 11 comments

super_soft_wizard

Sep 30, 2009 12:18 PM CDT

I hide a ton of idiots that post things like this.

yummines

Sep 30, 2009 4:04 AM CDT

yea i know. people should not have to share everything they are doing on the internet. "i just finished taking a dump." I seriously did not need to know that...

prowlerzee

Sep 30, 2009 1:39 AM CDT

Hahaha. That woman being dumped by the guy begging his ex-wife to take him back epitomizes the level of people who do something as stupid as post their lives on facebook. She probably was the skank that broke up the family in the first place and now she's getting hers. Let that be a lesson to guys on the caliber of woman a skank is. And in the best case scenario for her, that she just happened upon a divorced man and married him and got pregnant all within less than a half year...that is the caliber of men who dump their original families. They suck, too. I hope the ex-wife tells him to take a long walk off a short pier. It sounds as if the idiot who thought the grass was greener elsewhere and then dumps that family, too, doesn't deserve a second chance.

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Facebook Divorce Rule No. 1: Don't Overshare