Protect Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself – February 6, 2008

Has this been you? Well, if it was Paul J Whaley on Flickr posted it for the public to see

I want to ensure that I can get hired somewhere someday. A big part of making that happen is to protect my virtual identity. Besides the backlash some users have felt from their MySpace pages, what about Flickr or YouTube or any other social media outlet? Anything and everything you say or do has the potential to make it onto the Internet (e.g. a camera phone photo).

Scary, but the reality of the situation is that most people don’t post media to the Internet with the intent of doing harm to another individual, however, it can happen, even inadvertently. Here are my recommendations on preventing a personal virtual meltdown.

Step 1 – Don’t be a jerk, and don’t do anything you don’t want the public to know about.

Step 2 – Again, don’t be a jerk, and don’t do anything you don’t want the public to know about.

Step 3 – Post anything and everything about your life that give people a good impression about yourself. This will be a good counter in case something negative does arise.

Step 4 – Tell your friends you don’t want particular things you do or say posted or blogged.

Step 5 – If something does happen, embrace being wrong/evil/stupid/ignorant and suggest ways to make-up for your faux pas, but also ask if the original poster can take the content down.