Watch What You Post To Social Media
Video Transcribed: What’s the number one thing I can recommend for someone if they’re involved in an Oklahoma child custody matter or a divorce proceeding. My name is Ryan Cannonie, I am the Tahlequah family attorney for Wirth Law Office in Cherokee County and this is something that comes up a lot. What should I do? Here’s my recommendation.
A lot of my clients don’t really have this issue in their cases currently, but I’ve seen it in cases in the past. I saw it while I was a prosecutor in cases. One thing that we have a problem with nowadays is that social media is everywhere. You can’t just say get off social media. I couldn’t get off social media because you’re watching this video through it. I have to be able to see things on social media, Facebook in particular.
But be careful what you post. There are apps out there that can lock your account or keep you from posting between certain times. If you’re going through a pretty bad situation, maybe a bad divorce or breakup, it may not be the worst thing in the world to limit your ability to Facebook post at 2:00 or 3:00 AM.
The same thing is it may not be the worst thing in the world to give Tik Tok a break. You don’t need to do every new dance on there or every new soundbite fad that comes out. These are all things that most people think of, but do they follow? That’s the issue there.
So the number one thing I would say is to be very aware of what you’re sending in text, what you’re putting out there on social media, anything that you are sending digitally, anything you are recording, anything you are posting. If you’re not comfortable with that being played in front of a judge, by someone claiming that you are an unfit parent, then don’t put it out there.
Because once it’s out there, they’re going to get it. You’ve blocked them from your Facebook. Guess what? They have friends. You have friends. A lot of those are mutual. They’ll screenshot it and send it to them. It happens all the time.
Attorneys like myself, a few of us, have some fake Facebook. For someone who’s just a friend collector, we’ll add them on Facebook, they’ll add us, and what do you know? Now we have access to your Facebook and we can screenshot everything you post and ask you about it when you’re up on the stand.
So help your attorney out. Help yourself out. Use a little common sense on social media. If you can’t trust yourself, then take some initiative and get the app lock type things. But if you are in this situation, let’s say you didn’t see this video, and you’re worried about what’s going to happen in your case. Give us a call. We can look it over, talk to you about it, see if you want to retain us and get in there and possibly be able to help you with your case. But if you’re seeing this before your case, do us a favor. Knock off the social media posts just a little bit until all this is resolved.
