Facebook responsible for a third of divorces ?
Divorce-Online, which handles a volume of divorces in England & Wales has mined it’s data and asserts that evidence obtained from social network sites is directly linked to a surge of up to 50% in the number of divorces it deals with where behavior is used as the ground for divorce, taken from a sample of 5,000 divorces in 2011. The firm is not saying that facebook has necessarily caused the divorce, since obviously in most cases there are a variety of factors, it is simply pointing out that evidence which may be the “straw which breaks the camel’s back” is often found on facebook and other social networks.
One interesting aspect of the whole issue of social media is the evidential issue of what happens when evidence is obtained which is not public, such as of one spouse logs in to his or her spouses private emails or communications which are not public. This continues to be a controversial area, and certainly, where hidden financial assets are concerned, the recent Tchenguiz case moved the law much more firmly against evidence which is not properly or lawfully obtained.
