If you haven’t noticed by now, Facebook is beginning to become a useful tool in many fields, instead of just a social networking site. Recently there was a case with a woman who used Facebook pictures to prove her husband had married another woman.
Richard Barton Jr. was married to Adina Quarto for several years. They talked about a divorce but never followed through. This held until Quarto saw wedding pictures on Facebook of Barton and another woman. He refused to sign the divorce papers with Quarto. She decided to use his pictures to have Barton arrested, for bigamy.
According to a report released from the Associate Press, Facebook and other social media have become a big part in divorce cases. Spouses have been using profile information as evidence to prove affairs and in some cases, bigamy. The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers said they have used evidence from social media sources for about 81% of their members in the past year. Also the word “Facebook” as appeared in about 20% of divorce cases in the past year.
Richard Barton Jr. is a prime example of someone who was never completely aware of Facebook’s privacy settings. When Barton and Quarto became farther apart, Barton “de-friended” her on Facebook. Unfortunately he was unaware of the public setting for his photos. As he went along with his life and happily posted pictures from his second wedding, Quarto publicly accessed the photographs and used them against him in court.
I’m not trying to argue that being well informed with social media privacy will keep affairs on the down low. I just want to show you that with the lack of knowledge of privacy settings, people can release information that was intended to be private. This case is a little extreme but necessary to understand the full effect. If Barton would have changed his photos to private, he could have avoided being placed in jail.
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