Do you have a long and possibly checkered history on social media? This app might help your reputation

Social media, even with all the pictures of cats and food is essentially the wild west. The wrong Tweet here, or ill-advised Facebook post there can really change lives. How many times have you thrown out a cyber-bomb with your smartphone while tossing back shots of your favorite drink only to realize the next morning what your wrote could make you lose your job, your significant other, or somethings equally not-so-appealing? Whether you are a student or politician, celebrity or soccer mom, the internet can turn on you in a hurry, even over something that was shared ages ago. Ethan Czahor, the developer behind the new app Clear, knows this first hand.

Ethan served in the chief technology position for former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign until Buzzfeed found a few old tweets from his account that referred to women as “sluts” and made other colorful, politically incorrect, references.

With Clear, the app will connect to your Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts, and search through your entire archive of activity. Clear will then catalog how “clear” you are in terms of content containing profanity, racially divisive, or sexually inappropriate innuendo. The app will then delete all that content en masse if desired.

Interestingly, this app would not have helped Ethan keep his job, as some of the content found by the media was on his own website, and Clear only connects to a few different social media services. Clear is available only on iTunes, and while it can be downloaded now, there is a lengthy waiting list to actually use the service.

Of course, assuming that you do not need an algorithm to understand what might be construed as offensive or derogatory content in your digital identity, you could choose instead to simply not post that kind of stuff.


via: The Verge