Wife finds out about divorce on Facebook

"Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady," read the Facebook update, broadcast to all of Neil's friends.

Neil, filing for divorce from Emma, had changed his relationship status in his Facebook settings.

Public humiliation? Or a misjudged privacy setting? We may never know, but Emma Brady only found out what was happening to her marriage when a friend told her!

Someone in Canada had even commented on Neil's status update, saying he was 'better off out of it'.

Emma said she was 'shell-shocked' at the revelation.

Source: Daily Mail

Relationship status: aargh!

On Facebook, there's a place where you can fill in profile information such as your relationship status.

By default, any change in the relationship status is relayed on the News Feed so everyone else is alerted to it. A friend was once surprised they hadn't heard about a change in relationship status because he "didn't see it appear on Facebook". This is because alerts had been turned off!

It's kind of sad that people think they can only find out about big upheavals in people's personal lives through the Facebook feeds. In a sad and recent case, which is not Facebook's fault, a man was sentenced to life after murdering his wife when she changed her status to 'single'. The man has been dubbed the 'Facebook killer', but I'm not keen on how the media portrays it as all Facebook's fault -- clearly, other dynamics were at work; the man was on drugs at the time, he was bitter, he had made threatening phone calls.

But you know, it's best to make sure those status updates aren't relayed to all and sundry (find it under Privacy > News Feed and Wall. Uncheck that box!). And if you don't get along with your ex, delete them from your friends list for goodness sake!