ERASING YOUR DIGITAL DOPPELGANGER

ERASING YOUR DIGITAL DOPPELGANGER

You may want to erase your questionable past from social media, with potential employers and partners on the prowl. And pressing delete is no longer your only option. Here's how to clear your online trail

Timehop is a fun app that digs through your online past, presenting you with posts, tweets and photos that you shared on social media years ago. Each day is a surprise, and you'll often be shown a Facebook post or an Instagram image that you've probably forgotten about. It can be a pleasant shot of nostalgia or an embarrassing reminder of the person you once were, but it exemplifies one simple fact ­ the internet never forgets.

There's a lot of talk these days about going on a social media detox by taking a break from obsessing over retweets and Instagram likes. But sometimes, you might want to go beyond just a temporary timeout from social media. You're no longer the person you once were when you first opened your Facebook and Twitter accounts, and you may not want the HR manager at your next potential workplace or your new girlfriendboyfriend to see your impulsive Twitter rants or the selfies you took with your ex. Or maybe, you just want to cut it all out from your life or wipe the slate clean and start over with a brand new online persona. 

THINK TWICE 

Deleting your social media profiles and accounts from online services like Google is an extreme step and one that you shouldn't take impulsively. Remember, the very nature of social networks is such that everything is interconnected. Take that questionable Facebook post you shared with a friend for instance.You may remove the post itself, but a link to it will remain on your friend's account, even if the original post is no longer present. This rule applies to all of social media.

If you do decide that deleting all your online accounts is the way to go, consider the various options that these services offer. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter allow you to deactivate your account rather than deleting them outright. This makes your profile and posts inacces sible to the world, but all your posts and images will remain, should you ever decide to come back. If your decision to leave was made on an impulse, this option is a godsend and it will keep you from making a mistake you will regret.

Unlike deactivating, deleting accounts is permanent -all your posts, contacts and images are lost -and there's no coming back from it.So think twice before you delete your accounts.

If you've made your mind, however, here's how you can go about erasing your online self. Before you begin, keep in mind that most of these services can only be deleted via their desktop websites and not through their mobile apps. 

GOOGLE 

This is the big one. The benefit of a Google account is that one log-in gives you access to a variety of services that have become essential to us.Gmail, YouTube, Google+, Hangouts, Google Maps, Google Drive -these are all linked to one Google account. It's super convenient, but it also means that you can't delete one and retain the others. There's no way you can delete your YouTube account while still retaining Gmail. If removing all traces of your online persona is your goal, you'll have to delete your main Google account. Before you do that, bear in mind that you need a Google account for any Android device you may use, and if you use your Google account to sign into third-party services, like Airbnb, you'll be locked out of those.

You'll also lose all content associated with your Google account, including your photos and documents on Google Docs and the apps you purchased from the PlayStore. If you do decide to return to Google in the future, you won't be able to use the same login name as that will be lost forever.

To delete your Google account, sign in and go to `My account'.Under `Account preferences', click on `Delete your account or services', followed by `Delete Google account and data'. 

FACEBOOK 

Facebook doesn't want you to leave, and so you'll have to jump through quite a few hoops to actually delete your account.Deactivate your account instead of deleting it as it will make your account unusable and inaccessible to your friends and the public.Your friends won't be able to tag you either. To the outside world, deactivating your account will essentially erase you from Facebook, but the benefit here is that if you ever decide to come back, all your friends, posts and photos will be waiting for you.

But if you do decide to go all the way and delete your account, you'll first want to disassociate your account from all services that you access using your Facebook account. You'll also want to remove all apps that you've added to your account. Finally, if you're the administrator for any Facebook Pages or Groups, designate another person as admin so that those Pages Groups don't disappear with you.

You also might want to download all your Facebook data before you leave for good. The option can be found in the `General' section of your account settings. The delete account option isn't available within your settings, so you'll have to visit the URL `https:http:www.facebook.comhelpdelete_account' to access it.Your account won't be deleted right away but within two weeks, and if you happen to log in within this cool-off period, your deletion request will be cancelled. Once it is deleted, Facebook says it will take up to 90 days for all content related to your account to be deleted, although the account itself will be deleted.

TWITTER

Twitter doesn't offer separate deactivation and delete processes, but deactivating your account is the only way to delete it. Like Facebook, deactivating your account makes your profile and tweets inaccessible to the outside world, but you'll be able to come back and all your content will be as you left it.

To deactivate your account, sign in and head to `Account settings', where you'll find the `Deactivate my account' option. If you do not sign into your deactivated account for 30 days, Twitter will initiate the process of deleting it, which could take up to a week. Bear in mind that you won't be able to use the email address associated with this account to open a new Twitter account in the future.

INSTAGRAM

To temporarily disable your Instagram account, log in to your account from the service's desktop website, go to your profile and select `Temporarily disable my account'. To delete your account permanently, go to the URL `https:http:www.instagram.comaccountsremove requestpermanent' once logged in.

SNAPCHAT 

Snapchat doesn't offer a temporary deactivation option and neither can you delete your account via the app. To delete, log into your account from the desktop website. Under the account settings, click on `delete my account'.

LINKEDIN 

You can always overhaul your Linkedin profile rather than deleting your account, but if you choose to do the latter, head to `Privacy and settings', where under the `Subscriptions' category, you can click on `Closing your account'.

WHATSAPP 

WhatsApp can only be deleted via the app itself. Once you delete your account, you will lose all the information related to it, including your chat logs, friends and groups. The process varies a bit depending on the operating system of your phone, but on Android and iOS, you can delete your account by heading into `Settings', then `Account' and selecting `Delete my account'.

YOU CAN'T GET RID OF IT ALL 

Despite your best efforts to erase all traces of your online presence, there's only so much that you can do. If you had set up your social media accounts to share your posts, tweets or photos publicly, chances are that those posts were then picked up and archived by several other websites. Getting your posts off those websites may be impossible, so your content may still pop up in Google searches.

Thanks to the way search engines work, your name and profiles may continue to show up in Google searches even after your account has been deleted since Google creates a cache of web pages that remain accessible for a while. Over time, however, it will be like you were never there.

SERVICES YOU CAN LEAVE 

REDDIT: 

The Reddit community has helped save lives but it also has a notorious dark side to it. It's easy to not get sucked into the sometimes negative discussions that mushroom in your favourite Subreddits, and this is something you may not want your real-life acquaintances to see.Preferences > `Delete' tab 

CHANGE.ORG:

It takes little for people to create rash online petitions and even less for others to sign them in the heat of the moment, but these may not always be causes you support in the long term. So if you'd rather not have others see the petitions you've signed, you can delete your Change.org account.Account settings > Close account 

QUORA:

Quora is a useful platform for those seeking answers to their queries from other people, but you may not necessarily want a potential employer looking into the discussions you've participated in.Privacy settings > Delete account 

TRUECALLER:

Truecaller is a crowd-sourced caller ID service for smartphones that displays your name when you call someone who doesn't have your number saved. Since this information is provided to the service by other users, it may be inaccurate or may be wrongly marked as spam. Or maybe you just don't want your number listed. You can fill up a form to request Truecaller to unlist your number.https:http:www.truecaller.comunlist

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library

Khaitan & Co

Upcoming Event | National Conference on Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) during April 22-23, 2016.

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