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.
Note | If anybody use
these post for forwarding in any social media coverage or covering in the
Newsletter please give due credit to those who are taking efforts for the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment