Could Your Social Media History Come Back to Bite You?

Getting caught in a social media faux pas seems to be the new normal. It’s not uncommon for old social media posts from celebrities, influencers, and politicians to resurface and spark public outcry. They find themselves under fire for past comments or behaviors that, viewed through today’s lens, were deemed offensive or inappropriate.

In our fast-moving digital world, today’s conversations can take on new meanings years down the line. Then you might find yourself explaining posts that no longer reflect who you are.

This reality makes it crucial to start a conversation in your family about social media archives. Teens and tweens are constantly posting, snapping, tweeting, and commenting every day. According to the latest research, 97% of teens go online daily, with many saying they are “almost constantly” connected.

With so much activity, it’s just a matter of time before some questionable content resurfaces, potentially compromising a job, scholarship, or personal relationship. Old social posts don’t just haunt celebrities; in today’s digital culture, everyone’s online activity is open to scrutiny.

Eight tips for smarter posting

1. Vet your content. Ask yourself some key questions: Is there anything in this post or comment that could hurt me in the future? Does this post defame a specific race, religion, or lifestyle? Is this content contributing to the conversation or just noise?

2. Be Careful with Humor: Not everyone shares your sense of humor. What seems funny today could be viewed differently in the future. Just look at how comedians and public figures are often held accountable for jokes or comments made years ago.

3. Don’t pick at it—purge it. No doubt, people change. You may not be the 20-something hothead who began tweeting or blogging nearly a decade ago, but your archives are still out and say otherwise. In her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, some of which we can apply here.  1) Don’t analyze everything and just pair down — purge. 2) Get rid of anything that doesn’t spark joy for you 3) Don’t ask yourself what you like about a photo or post, ask yourself  ‘Why should this stay?’ 4) Keep only the content that makes you happy or inspires you. Chop everything else.

4. Use X’s advanced search. Some of us have tweeted out several novels worth of content. Who has time to go through that? X has advanced search features that will help you quickly find questionable tweets. Just go to https://x.com/search-advanced and enter keywords and phrases, along with your user account name. This search will help isolate tweets that could be compromising.

5. Am I being true to who I am? Most tweens and teens are not asking themselves this question, but we can still encourage our kids to engage in this specific self-reflection. Encourage young publishers to think about what message and image they hope to project to go through their archives with that in mind. Encourage them to review everything about their profiles from their bio to the kinds of movies and books they’ve called out, to their Facebook groups. Ask: Is this still who you are? Are these still the interests you’d like to project?

6. Delete immediately:

• Inactive social media accounts
• Provocative or inappropriate photographs, videos, or posts
• Posts or photos that include drinking or using drugs
• Discriminatory comments related to race, religion, gender, etc.
• Content that complains about a previous employer or colleague
• Posts that are overly cynical, grumpy, or mean

7. Review likes and post privacy settings. Even the posts of others (that are marked public) that you like or comment on will show up on Google, which means others could judge you guilty by association. It may be time-consuming, but you can clean up your Facebook ‘like’ history in the Activity Log. If you want to share but still limit who can view your posts, McAfee’s Social Privacy Manager helps you adjust your social media privacy settings based on how public or private you want to be online.

8. Google yourself. See what comes up. Be sure to check images, videos, news, and more tabs. You just never know what content will make it into remote circles. If you find something surprising, contact the site host and request they remove the content.

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