What happens in divorce when digital bullying is in play?

NEW YORK (AP) — After Emily Pina's parents separated, the 27-year-old in Phoenix said she spent years listening to her dad beg for the return of his family. He turned up the volume once her mom started dating.

Sound familiar?

“It's the same thing as Kanye and Kim,” she said.

And like the celebrity couple, her dad's digital life played a role in his breakup as it often does in contentious divorces.

Kanye West, now legally known as Ye, has gone quiet on Instagram after weeks of ranting publicly about Kim Kardashian in the name of fatherhood, which many saw as bullying and intimidation. His targets included Kardashian, her boyfriend, Pete Davidson, and Trevor Noah, who weighed in on “The Daily Show."

In Pina's case, she said her parents' divorce was impacted in part when her father, who has since died, was scammed out of $10,000 after meeting a woman online and attempting to bring her to the U.S. She turned out to be a man at a computer. In other cases, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are weaponized directly against an estranged spouse as divorce proceedings progress. Still more divorce cases include digital theft of emails, joint bank accounts and other shared logins.

Dan Stock, a New York family law attorney, warns that sounding off against a partner digitally can have lasting consequences when texts, posts, photos and other wrongs are hauled into court. That's especially true when child custody arrangements are on the table.

“Even Kanye shouldn’t be trash talking on social media unless, as may be the case, he has a divorce court death wish," Stock said. “It’s one thing to be the victim of a social media bully, but it’s an early holiday present to the case you are making if you are that victim’s divorce attorney.”

The sentiment was echoed by a dozen other lawyers who...