Think before you post… because it doesn’t matter once you do.

Posted: March 2nd, 2011 | Author: marcato15 | Filed under: General | No Comments »

Today is more of a general caution for anyone that ever decides to share information on the World Wide Web.

Think BEFORE you type, because once you hit submit, you can’t ever take it back.

This wisdom really applies to any form of communication, (which I think we all have discovered the hard way, I know I have), but especially to the Internet and Email. First an example, than an explanation.

If you don’t believe me, check out this article about a little organization you may have heard of, The White House of the United States, and their failed attempt to remove something they failed to think about before they posted.

http://www.heralddeparis.com/white-house-site-un-slams-bush-on-katrina-3/24795

If they can’t take things back, you won’t be able to either.

Unlike a letter you give to a friend, when you post something online, that piece of content is duplicated MANY, MANY more times than just the place you originally posted it. For example, you may think you have a small blog that doesn’t get read much, therefore you have a lot of liberty. You pust something, and then realize you erred greatly. You may take it down, from your blog, but it is not removed from the internet.

• First, anyone subscribing to your RSS Feed has a copy stored in there RSS reader, and has full text of what You said
• Second, Google likes to crawl everywhere and even though you may be small, its more than likely going to know about you, and not just know about you, but also cache your content, (in case your site ever goes down). This cache is available long after you ever remove your content, leaving an indelible record of your typing.
• Posting stuff on Twitter and Facebook? Once someone Re-tweets what you say, your stuff is out beyond your reach of control. Plus Twitter is crawled as well by Google. You also will struggle to pull content completely from Facebook, if even delete your post.
• EMAIL! The one that gets most people and seems to be the most costly, is email. Once you send out that email, there is nothing you can do to get it back. And if it was controversial enough, its probably already been forwarded on to many other people by now, and is in written form, always ready to haunt you when you expect it the least.

All that to say this, PLEASE think before you post, because you can’t do anything to take it back completely. If you don’t, don’t be shocked at how hard it is to remove it once you are done.

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