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发帖数: 29846 | 1 By Quentin Fottrell
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg changed his status to “married” Saturday and
received over one million “likes” from his followers. But the site he
founded isn’t always so marriage-friendly. In fact, lawyers say the social
network contributes to an increasing number of marriage breakups.
More than a third of divorce filings last year contained the word Facebook,
according to a U.K. survey by Divorce Online, a legal services firm. And
over 80% of U.S. divorce attorneys say they’ve seen a rise in the number of
cases using social networking, according to the American Academy of
Matrimonial Lawyers. “I see Facebook issues breaking up marriages all the
time,” says Gary Traystman, a divorce attorney in New London, Conn. Of the
15 cases he handles per year where computer history, texts and emails are
admitted as evidence, 60% exclusively involve Facebook.
“Affairs happen with a lightning speed on Facebook,” says K. Jason Krafsky
, who authored the book “Facebook and Your Marriage” with his wife Kelli.
In the real world, he says, office romances and out-of-town trysts can take
months or even years to develop. “On Facebook,” he says, “they happen in
just a few clicks.” The social network is different from most social
networks or dating sites in that it both re-connects old flames and allows
people to “friend” someone they may only met once in passing. “It puts
temptation in the path of people who would never in a million years risk
having an affair,” he says. Facebook declined to comment.
Even when extra-marital affairs develop with no help from Facebook, experts
say the site provides a deceptively comfortable forum for people to let off
steam about their lives and inadvertently arouse the suspicions of spouses.
“The difference with Facebook is it feels safe, innocent and private,”
says Randy Kessler, an Atlanta, Ga.-based lawyer and current chair of the
family law section of the American Bar Association. (See Facebook and
Divorce Discussed in WSJ.) “People put an enormous amount of incriminating
stuff out there voluntarily.” It could be something as innocuous as a check
-in at a restaurant, he says, or a photograph posted online.
When couples do end up in divorce court, lawyers say Facebook posts are used
to determine alimony and child custody. Last year, a superior district
court judge in Connecticut ordered a divorcing couple to hand over the
passwords of their respective Facebook to the other’s lawyers. Kessler says
it’s an extremely useful vehicle to gather evidence. “It helps me cross-
examine a witness,” he says. Any pattern of behavior that’s recorded on
Facebook relating to parenting skills, excessive partying or even
disparaging remarks about a spouse that violates a court order could be
admissible in court. Of course, it’s not Facebook’s fault it’s being
dragged through divorce court, he says, “It’s the people who use it.” |
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