1.      Check your settings – and check them again and again!  Privacy in social networking is a bit of an oxymoron, but you can control who has direct access to your information.  What you can’t control is what those who you grant access to your information will do with it.  Content can be copied and pasted whether or not “private” (see #2 below).  Furthermore, don’t count on the settings you selected when you opened your account to stay in tact indefinitely.  Site upgrades and new applications have been known to affect privacy settings.  Take a moment to look at your settings every week or so, and each time your social networking site applies an upgrade or you use a new application on the site.

2.      How many friends have I really got? and Don’t talk to strangers!  Social Interview, a Facebook survey application, includes among its questions “How many of your Facebook friends do you really know?”  We suggest the only right answer is, “100 percent.”

For some users, Facebook is a popularity contest and having a lot of online friends is viewed as a status ranking.  Don’t fall into that old high school game.  Another lesson from our youth:  don’t forget “Stranger Danger.” 

If you don’t know someone who is reaching out to become your online friend click “ignore.”  If they are persistent “block” them, which erases any trace of your account from their log-in. It’s a basic, common sense safety measure and if you’re in the midst of a divorce — or any other litigation for that matter – beware the stranger reaching out to you may be seeking damaging evidence on behalf of your estranged spouse or his/her legal counsel.

3.      “A picture is worth a thousand words.”  Is an unflattering or damaging picture or video of you posted?  You may “untag” yourself but go a step further.  Ask your “friend” to remove the picture.  Tagged or not, if the picture is of you engaging in anything that can be construed as illegal or immoral it can hurt your case.  If your friend won’t remove the image, report it to the site.  The privacy policies of the site may force its removal.

4.      “Anything you say can and will be used against you.”  This isn’t just the “talkin’ smack” mentioned by Time.  This also includes showing a bit too much of your own vulnerabilities. A member of our firm saw this series of “status” postings on an old friend’s FB wall:

·         3rd night this week he's gone out? No interest in going out with me — that's fine. I get it - whatever "the boys" (yeah right) are offering is better than me!

·         Must get courage to take the next step.

·         Who am I kidding, I'm to [sic] chicken to do anything.

The message was clear to all who read that this marriage was in trouble.  It also was clear to the writer’s husband that she was going to tolerate his behavior because of her own insecurities.  We’ve seen many such cases where a spouse plays on fears of abandonment or other vulnerabilities in negotiating a marital settlement agreement.  Net result is a nastier (and more costly) process for both.

5.      Clean your wall!  No, we’re not talking about getting out the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to clean up the kids’ crayon mess.  Everybody makes mistakes, especially in highly emotional circumstances such as divorce.  If you posted something you shouldn’t have, delete it.  The remarks noted in #4 were still live and accessible on Facebook 5 months after posting!  It took a lot of “read more” clicks but there they were.  Had those or other such “status updates” included actual incriminating content they could have readily been admissible and subject to subpoena.  If it doesn’t exist, it can’t be subpoenaed.