Social Networking may not be as harmless as you think…….
Back in the day, the only form of evidence was that which was testified or brought to the courtroom; charts, graphs, letters, items, official documents, etc. However, as the time progresses and technology continues to improve, many more things can possibly used as evidence.
These days, Courts are accepting text messages, emails, and anything else tangible or capable of reproduction as evidence. Some Judges have recently even begun accepting evidence (such as printouts or screen shots) of the content contained on social networking sites such as facebook and twitter.
Police officers and investigators have been able to find and apprehend accused criminals, and even solve mysteries by scrounging personal social network pages.
Judges presiding over divorce matters commonly order divorcing couple to exchange Facebook and dating site passwords. For example, the husband in one case, Stephen Gallion was seeking full custody of their children, and reportedly suspected that his wife’s accounts may contain incriminating evidence that may help his case. You can check out the full article by clicking here.
Knowing that most of you who are reading this probably have some type of social networking, dating, or other online accounts that may one day become the subject of discovery, I caution you to be very careful about the content. These sites are being used for everything: civil litigation, criminal cases, small claims, divorce, child-custody, and much more. You wouldn’t want a simple “comment”, “tweet”, “status update”, “post”, or even a “private” message that you thought was all fun and games & harmless, to cause you unwanted problems.
