Family Law

What Evidence Can You Discover on Social Networking Sites?

By Ben Stevens

These days, it seems as though people are increasingly putting themselves online.  On sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, they regularly publish information about their personal and professional lives, many times in intimate detail.  As Dan Berexa recently pointed out in "Social Networking Sites Can Provide Key Evidence" on his Tennessee Law Blog, these sites "can be treasure troves of evidence relating to parties or witnesses. The photos, videos or written posts placed on a social networking site can devastate a case."  

In many cases, people simply don't think about the potential consequences of publishing such personal information online, and they never consider that it may later be used against them in Court. In Family Court cases, one's personal conduct is always a pertinent issue, and a litigant can really damage his/her case by making statements about marital infidelity, substance abuse, or admissions of other types of questionable conduct.  In fact, I've been able to use this type of information very effectively in several of my cases. Blake Boyd discussed a similar situation in "Using Social Networks to Gather Evidence" on his Trial Technologist's View blog.

Anne Reed has published a comprehensive guide to these sites,  "A Trial Lawyer's Guide To Social Networking Sites", on her Deliberations blog.  I believe that this guide is very helpful, whether you are a novice who wants to explore these resources or a tech expert who simply wants an one-stop listing of these sites.  This guide is divided into the following categories:  Basic social networking sites; Ethnic and special-interest communities; Blogs; Microblogs; Blog/social network hybrids; Business sites; Niche communities; Sharing sites; Bookmarking sites; Games; Second Life; Contests; Comments; Forums; Groups; Getting personal; and Websites.

Full post as published by SC Family Law Blog on November 24, 2008 (boomark / email).