I think the point of showing relative dates is that the web is International and cross border. and if you display a date time. You need to define next to it Which Timezone !
Then it would be complicated for the users living in USA to read the status of His Japanese friend that is stamped with a future date while it was actually posted a minute ago.
Another Scenario:
Which Time-stamp you want to use. the Client or the Server ?
Imagine a user in London using a server in Singapore, which time stamp you want to display, the Java-script generated Time-stamp for the Client's browser in London, or the Server time-stamp in Japan ?
Then it would be complicated for the users living in USA to read the status of His Japanese friend that is stamped with a future date while it was actually posted a minute ago.
Another Scenario: Which Time-stamp you want to use. the Client or the Server ? Imagine a user in London using a server in Singapore, which time stamp you want to display, the Java-script generated Time-stamp for the Client's browser in London, or the Server time-stamp in Japan ?