Embarrassing updates in social media

Strategic Communications, Social Media, Digital PR

Embarrassing updates in social media

29 June 2012 5 Comments

Nicked from Marketing Pilgrim

Ever update your Facebook with a silly remark and then regret it? It happens all the time. Now, there’s a new website that collates people’s embarrassing updates, categorizes them and publishes them for all world to see (again). It’s called We Know What You’re Doing.

“I love my work. I just hate my boss,” says Donovane van D, while Polly B announces, “One good thing about being super hungover is my mum gives me a lisence (sic) to be a moany, bossy cow to her all day. Just sent her to the shop to buy me orange juice and a bag of ice.”

The website sends search bots to crawl Facebook and Foursquare to find key words such as “hungover” and “cannabis” and divides the findings into four categories: “Who wants to get fired?”, “Who’s hungover?”, “Who’s taking drugs?” and “Who’s got a new phone number?”.

The site attracted more than 100,000 visitors in the first 27 hours of its launch. People whose updates have been featured on the website might well be surprised by the publicity they shouldn’t be. No information is posted that hasn’t been published by the social media users themselves. But there is a fix. There’s a feature which which allows anyone highlighted on the site to request the removal of their post.

When you consider that social networks started gaining popularity more than five years ago, it’s surprising that so many people still don’t understand how to or fail to use the privacy settings. Better still, don’t say something on Facebook that you wouldn’t be proud to see published on page one of your hometown newspaper.

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