Protecting Your Online Image During Separation and Divorce

In an age where the Internet is used frequently and on a day-to-day basis, lawyers and the courts are relying on online activity more and more. Anything posted about you, whether it is on your personal social community page, a blog or on a regular website, can be used against you. Anything out there that sheds light on a version of you that is not PG-13 can hurt your case; undermine your credibility and all other efforts made by others to reflect your gentle and vulnerable side. Consequently, you need to be aware of the image that your online presence has and throughout a relationship/marriage breakdown, you will want this to be as clean as possible.

Preferably, the best thing for you to do is to take down your Facebook or other internet pages entirely. You should also ask your family and friends to take down any information that relates back to you. That includes all videos, photographs and commentary.

Now, we understand that you may not want to do something as radical as shutting down the whole Facebook page (or other social media outlet), so here are some other options¹:

1. Search through and clean up your online presence as well as that of your friends and family for anything that could be used against you in your family law dispute.
2. Take down anything that compromises the kind of image that needs to be portrayed for a litigation advantage. This would include speaking to friends and family and asking them to take down videos or photos of you that may harm your case.
3. Don’t show off: don’t post photographs or videos or engage in discussions about new purchases or vacations. All of these feed the industrious lawyer looking to influence how the court looks at your ability to parent, manage finances, and even your financial need and means.
4. Think before you post. Don’t talk about or show the side of you that you would hide from your elders. Leave out details, pictures or videos that portray your wild side.
5. Don’t talk about your case, your spouse, the lawyers or the judge on your page or on anyone else’s internet page.
6. Change your privacy settings. Set these so that there is limited information on you out in cyber world. Most sites have the options to avoid having photos or videos tagged of you, take you out of search results or prevent stories about you from showing up on your friends home feed (main page). After changing your
   settings, have your friends double check what they can see and report back to you.
7. Avoid embarrassing posts from friends either by instantly deleting the posts (which isn’t always likely) or simply taking yourself off the forum in which they post. If you have friends who normally post about your crazy and wild nights out, you may want to consider taking yourself off the forum altogether.
8. Keep your friendships private. Consider hiding who your friends are. Again most sites have the option of keeping your contacts secret.

Tips Particular to Facebook Privacy²

Facebook made a number of privacy changes recently. These changes affect the privacy of your posts, your personal information, and links to search engines. The information below can help you better protect your privacy on Facebook.

For status updates and other posts you share, if you accepted the new Facebook recommended settings, then Facebook can now share the information you post with other users and applications on Facebook, and even with other search engines in some cases. In order to revert back to more private posts do the following:

1. From your Profile page, put your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
2. Click “Profile Information” from the list of choices that appear.
3. Scroll down to the setting “Posts by Me”. This encompasses anything you post, including status updates, links, notes, photos, and videos.
4. Change this setting using the drop-down box on the right. Choose the “Only Friends” setting to ensure that only those people you’ve specifically added as a friend on Facebook can see the things you post.

The next issue is protecting your personal information. This means protecting information such as your birthdate, religious and political views and relationship status. The new default option for this information makes it viewable by “Everyone” or “Friends of Friends”. To protect the privacy of this information, do the following:

1. From your Profile page, put your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
2. Click “Profile Information” from the list of choices.
3. The third, fourth, and fifth item listed on this page are as follows: “birthday,” “religious and political views,” and “family and relationship.” Locking down birthday to “Only Friends” is wise, especially considering information such as this is often used in identity theft.
4. Depending on your own personal preferences, you may or may not feel comfortable sharing your relationship status and religious and political views with complete strangers. Any setting besides “Only Friends” is opening your information to strangers. While “Friends of Friends” sounds innocuous enough, it refers to everyone your friends have added as friends, a large group containing hundreds if not thousands of people you don’t know. All it takes is one less-thanselective friend in your network to give an unsavory person access to this information.

Facebook has a statement on its Search Settings page stating that it has only indexed certain information about you to Google, so that when your name is typed into Google, your Facebook link and basic information about you appears. However, if you have checked-off “Allow” on the Search Settings page, you’re giving search engines the ability to access and index any information on your page that is accessible to “Everyone”. To better protect your information you can do the following:

1. From your Profile page, put your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right
   and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
2. Click “Search” from the list of choices.
3. Click “Close” on the pop-up message that appears.
4. On this page, uncheck the box labeled “Allow” next to the second setting “Public Search Results.” This will keep all your publicly shared information (items set to viewable by “Everyone”) out of the search engines. If you want to see what the end result looks like, click the “see preview” link in blue underneath this setting.

We anticipate that following the steps outlined will better protect your privacy and diminish the risk of your personal information, photos or comments from being used against you. It is important to take all the necessary precautions to keep your personal information secure and safe from prying eyes.