A bankruptcy proceeding in South Dakota officially begins when you file in South Dakota federal court. After you file, the court begins an analysis of your income, expenses, debts and assets to determine how best to remedy your financial challenges.

You are also assigned a bankruptcy trustee, who will guide and analyze your bankruptcy case to assure the best result for the other parties in interest. The bankruptcy trustee is there to search for assets to distribute amongst your creditors. The trustee will not take kindly to any inconsistencies between what you say and what they see from other evidence – including social media.

The trustee may search for inaccuracies in your filing. It is more likely that one of your creditors will search for them in an effort to secure everything they are owed. If they find anything that indicates you’re perpetuating fraud in your case, they will certainly alert the trustee.

When you file for bankruptcy, you are essentially telling the court and your creditors that you do not have the money you need to pay your debts. This is a representation which is assumed to be truthful – at first. But because perfect honesty is not a feature of the human condition, the bankruptcy trustee or a creditor may perform some investigations.

They will most likely use the simplest methods at their disposal – Googling your name, and searching for your accounts on social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. If they happen to see you on vacation or talking about your new car, clothes, or any other luxury, they’ll take this to mean you may not be telling the truth about your financial situation.

You may also encounter an issue if you claim to the bankruptcy court that you are not working or only make a certain amount of money. If you happen to post or share something which indicates you are working off-the-books, the trustee can take that information and consider it in your proceeding – and they will probably not be happy about it. Similarly, if you post and sell something on Facebook Marketplace or a similar exchange, and then fail to disclose the sale in your bankruptcy paperwork, that too can become an issue.

As a rule, when going through a bankruptcy proceeding, you should avoid publicizing personal information. Personal information includes your whereabouts or housing situation, employment or lack thereof, and purchases you’ve made or gifts you’ve received. The less information you make public, the less chance you have of creating incongruency between your social media and your bankruptcy filing. You should always avoid making public statements or comments about the proceeding.