Image via CrunchBase

I’ve posted about social media before, so it is no surprise to say that Paris Brown gets some of my sympathy.

Imagine being 17 years old, casually Tweeting your thoughts to your mates, and a year later holding a post as a youth Police Crime Commissioner in Kent, where your words are regarded as anything but casual.  Talk about making your growing up mistakes in public.

Many of us are learning the hard way that Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and their peers are not transient media.  It is difficult to put a favourable context on what Paris Brown said.  She got it wrong.  An apology after the fact for ‘any offence that I have caused’ sounds increasingly like damage limitation.  Deleting the Tweets won’t mean they will be forgotten.  Bottom line, it is difficult, but not impossible, to erase a digital history.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/video/2013/apr/05/how-to-delete-yourself-from-the-internet-video

In a sign of the times the British Library is to store some social media output for posterity.  Perhaps every social media user needs to act on a simple goal: to use their chosen medium in way that would reflect their personal brand positively, if what they wrote was to be saved by the British Library.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9977188/Teenage-PCC-apologises-for-showing-off-with-offensive-Twitter-remarks.html

Related articles

• British Library starts project to ‘capture’ the internet (standard.co.uk)