Post In Haste, Repent At Leisure

Think before you post.

One of the most dangerous consequences of online campaigning is that anything and everything can be scrutinized. From offline speeches that are uploaded to YouTube to even the most banal social media posts, everything is fair game.

While a candidate cannot control everything that appears about them online, at the very least, a candidate should not add to the problem be making social media posts in anger or under duress. It’s easy to get angry online. Nasty personal posts and angry comments can demand an equally harsh response.

Avoid the temptation to lash out. Just remember that not everyone is going to like you online. People are going to criticize you and say mean things. It’s simply the nature of the social media environment.

Think before you post and double-check what you link to because the internet remembers everything. Make sure what you post is written clearly and unambiguously. If you are posting images, take a good look at them before they are uploaded. Make sure your videos are edited and make a point. The last thing you want to do is say or post something that could come back to bite you.

Like offensive comments about gay people or minorities.

Or saying outrageous things about your political opponents.

Or accidentally Tweeting a photo of a woman in bondage gear.

Just in case you thought that no one saw your dumb but quickly-deleted post, the eyes of the web are always open and watching.  Politwoops is an archive of the public statements deleted by U.S. politicians. Most of the time the deleted tweets are due to typos, but some are not.

Are there going to be things you post that you will later regret in the future? Of course. Many times, the actual act of deletion is what brings attention to an old post. Tweeted about an endorsement six months ago by someone you’d rather not be associated with today? Yep, even those old announcements can still be found in the archives.

Deleting old Twitter tweets and Facebook posts is a lot easier than deleting forum thread comments, posts or images on other websites. Old material that you may not know about or have long forgotten could be out there, waiting to be discovered.

Even if you successfully take down old material, any content can be archived. Users can take screen shots, search engines can store archived copies of pages and even entire websites can have snapshots stored in sites like the Wayback Machine.

With everything a candidate does online under a microscope, how can the modern candidate avoid the critiques and criticisms of removing or updating old material?

One way to blunt the impact is to simply admit that you’ve changed your mind about a post or topic. Admitting to something is the adult thing to do, and it often counters accusations that you are trying to hide something.

Besides, when someone intentionally wants to keep something hidden, it makes people only want to see it more…

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 Image courtesy of iosphere at FreeDigitalPhotos.net