Thankfully, she was found safe a few days later (turns out she had run away and was not abducted). End of story, right?

Not exactly. In an effort to protect her privacy (and not have the incident “follow” her for the rest of her life), people are being asked to remove any mentions of the incident, the child’s name, as well as photos, etc. – essentially, an attempt to give this child a “clean slate”.

A totally understandable request (which is why I haven’t linked to any of the aforementioned content), but therein lies the problem. The web is a hydra of information, and every piece of content posted online – every blog post, photo, status update, video, tweet, comment, etc. must now be treated as permanent, decentralized record. Even if something is deleted, odds are that the information has been archived and/or reposted elsewhere and will no doubt be discovered in the future. Not a big deal for the average “joe the plumber” (oops, scratch that…), but you never know when something like a moment of, say, teenage indiscretion can come back to haunt you later in life when going for a job interview, running for office, etc.

Censorship versus Privacy versus Slander

I’ve identified the following types of social media “messes” that we will all need to face at some time. If you can think of other categories, definitely drop me a tweet or post a comment:

1. Censorship – Attempt to wipe out or suppress the creation of any factual information that may harm the reputation of a person or organization. See China and Scientology.
2. Privacy – Attempt to protect the personal information of an individual that can put their identity or safety at risk. An example would be a crazed fan posting a celebrity’s email address, phone number, social security #/credit card info, location of schools attended by children, etc.
3. Slander/Libel – Attempt to challenge/rebut damaging (let’s assume false) information posted by an individual or a in more organized, calculated manner. But whether something is considered libel or slander is up for debate.

A Social Media “Fixer”?

So, how do you deal with/clean up a social media mess? Like the Harvey Keitel character in “Pulp Fiction”, could there exist a social media “fixer”, i.e., someone who can clean up a social media “mess”? That would be virtually impossible. Sure, there are plenty of companies out there who tout “reputation management” services, but those are more ongoing/proactive and often involve trying to “bury” the offending information in search results.

I’ll admit, these are somewhat uncharted waters and my analysis may be way off base but this is pretty eye-opening issue. Please don’t take this to mean we must all fear social media, but rather that we must understand how to co-exist with it (and if done properly, embrace it) and choose to accept the consequences of the actions by both ourselves and others (and have a strategy in place to deal with any future social media “messes”). Come on, we were all young and stupid once…