Yes.
Yes, it can. This does not mean that everything you post on social media will be used against you. Some statements on social media are pretty hard to find fault with. Posting “’How ’bout them Yankees!” after your favorite baseball team wins a game would be pretty hard to twist into something negative about you. But what about something like this?: you’re going through a divorce and write on a social media post, “The kids are driving me crazy!” An opportunistic, vindictive, desperate spouse (and his/her attorney) could try to use that against you to suggest you are mentally unstable, perhaps a danger to your children, and thus unfit as a parent. Even if you wrote “The kids are driving me crazy!” in jest, the fact that you wrote it or said it is now out there to be cited and abused, if your spouse is so inclined.
Or what about posting a picture of yourself holding a beer in your hand at a party? Is that alcoholism or alcohol abuse I see?
On a more subtle level, what if your judge has strong political and moral beliefs that color his/her attitudes toward litigants (judges shouldn’t let their personal moral beliefs lead them to pick favorites, but it happens more often than you’d like to think) and you write a social media post on abortion or racial tensions, or welfare? Would that poison the judge’s opinion of you and poison his/her rulings against you?
Remember the “Miranda warning”? The “You have the right to remain silent . . . Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”? Even though the Miranda warning applies to people being placed under arrest for a crime, the point behind the Miranda warning applies equally well in a divorce case setting: what you communicate (whether orally or in writing) can be used against you as evidence.
So, watch what you say and write and do. Don’t let fear of being misunderstood or misconstrued cow you into silence or lead you to stop doing the perfectly legal and good things you enjoy, but exercise mature care and restraint in your words and actions as they bear upon the issues in your divorce case.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277
