There is no delete button on the web
Is a quote from an article on Read Write Web by Lidja Davis who talks about the fact that one of the unintended consequences of the social web is that every time we do something online we leave a little piece of information behind about us, which is permanent, especially thanks to tools like the Way Back Machine, which allows you to look at web pages as they once were.
That’s obviously problematic for two reasons.
First of all, as previous examples of online smear campaigns have shown, it is very easy to trash someone’s reputation online, especially if s/he doesn’t have a large digital footprint.
Secondly, any rants that out of context could paint you as being a bit of a loon, can be found by a future employer, as can any flickr shots of you getting mind numbingly drunk at that party you went to at the weekend.
Keeping your nose clean, some guidelines from the New York Times
In that context, the New York Times policy on Facebook and other social websites is worth a look and for a lot of organisations, I think worth basing your own guidelines on.
Some extracts:
“Personal blogs and “tweets” represent you to the outside world just as much as an 800-word article does. If you have or are getting a Facebook page, leave blank the section that asks about your political views.
“Anything you post online can and might be publicly disseminated, and can be twisted to be used against you by those who wish you or The Times ill — whether it’s text, photographs, or video. That includes things you recommend on TimesPeople or articles you post to Facebook and Digg, content you share with friends on MySpace.”
While those guidelines are aimed at journalists, they could apply to people who work in communications agencies too.
For example, are you sure a client won’t be thin skinned enough to mind if you big up a competitor’s products or campaigns on Twitter or Stumbleupon? Remember that a Ketchum exec got hauled over the coals for something that some people would consider a fairly minor incident – trashing client FedEx’s home town of Memphis on Twitter.
The permanent digital footprint
I started using the Internet in my mid 20s and when I go online today I can find press releases I posted almost ten years ago still coming up fairly high on Google.
Graduates who join Cow today, started using the web in their early teens and probably have a few years worth of Facebook history already behind them. But someone born today has a permanent digital footprint from birth, as the video below from Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society shows.
As I previously posted, one of the reasons virtual worlds may become more popular is with everything about you being known within a few minutes of going on Google, virtual worlds may be one of the few places left where you can regain a degree of anonymity and re-invent yourself.
Image – Voteprime
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Thank you for the comment Jen! Yes, the video is definitely thought provoking as it shows that for someone born today, there almost is no such thing as privacy.
I give a talk to high school students a few times a year about the importance of keeping your path clean on the Internet. I really enjoyed the video you posted about the growth of our digital dossier from birth-death. That is quite a way to think about how what we do online impacts us in real life. Fantastic example. Thanks!