“I honestly can say that I felt more like a female than I think I ever have or will,” Vance wrote after what he described as an “incredibly emotional” day. Meanwhile, one tagged photo, linked to a Facebook account that appears to belong to Vance, shows a man the poster claims is Vance “passed out in a corner.” One reply from an account named “JD Vance” with 13,000 followers and friends including Vance’s dog, Casper, said that “this might be my first official blackout.” People online were quick to pile on, and this was after a week of accounts falsely claiming that Vance described an odd sex act in his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.”
Vance didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Most of us won’t run for office, but Vance’s old posts are a reminder that none of us is safe from our own digital footprints. A hiring manager or bitter enemy could dig up something embarrassing from the hundreds of past posts sitting on your social media profiles, or a new crush could browse those unflattering tagged photos from your friend’s birthday party. Millennials in particular are dealing with the detritus of growing up online — many got social media profiles and internet-connected phones before anyone had a clear idea what the internet would bring.
Tech companies like holding onto your data — now they’re even using your posts to train AI — but that doesn’t mean you have to follow suit. Here’s what you can do today to make sure your digital footprint doesn’t humiliate you decades from now.
We often talk online the same way we talk in person: off the cuff, thinking as we go. But the things we say online live can live forever. That post that starts with “let me just say” or “sorry if this is rude but” could still be sitting in a searchable database in 15 years. Consider paring down what you post.
Either that or start deleting as you go. With the tool TweetDelete you can delete your X posts en masse — you can even search for keywords such as profanities and delete only those. If you’re not using your Facebook account any more, deactivate or delete it. Just like you get onto new platforms when they interest you, it’s fine to purge the old ones as you go.
Don’t forget the oldies
As you delete or tidy up your digital footprint, don’t get cocky and forget the many, many places you overshared during your youth. That might include Blogger, Tumblr, Photo Bucket, Shutterfly, Xanga and LiveJournal.
Some social apps let you share posts — “stories” — with a built-in, 24-hour life span. Rather than making a permanent post to the app’s feed, maybe share on your story instead. You don’t have to worry about deleting stories because they delete themselves — unless someone else screenshots them.
If you’re worried about it, post to a smaller group. Instagram has a “close friends” feature that lets you handpick a second, limited audience to share stories with. X has a Communities tab where you can join or create a smaller group of people and post directly to them. On Snapchat, go to your profile and tap “new private story.” Then you can hand pick who sees it. And on Facebook, you can adjust your story privacy to “custom” and select who you’d like to share with.
Consider the speed of internet culture
Looking back at internet breadcrumbs from your own bygone eras can be uncomfortable. The world has changed, but that “text me, bored” Facebook status from 2010 remains the same.
Now, internet culture — from joke formats to popular opinions — changes by the day. What feels like a witty remark on Monday could look tone deaf on Friday.
Don’t let your digital footprint age like milk. Your next boss might scroll through your X or TikTok profile. So might your mom, your ex and that stranger you met at a conference. If you don’t delete as you go, at least give your older posts a glance every now and then. Does that piping hot opinion about Carly Rae Jepsen still represent the person you’d like to be?
Even if you successfully delete your most embarrassing posts, the traitors (your friends) might still have you tagged in photos from college parties, weird fundraisers or private moments. You can always intermittently check the photos and videos you’re tagged in. Instagram, for one, lets you delete multiple tags at once if you go to settings -> tags and mentions -> review tags.
Consider deleting your data
Deleting an online account often doesn’t delete the data the company has collected about you. To do that, you need to file a request, usually located at the bottom of the company’s website under “privacy” or “CCPA.” Most U.S. states don’t have laws protecting your right to have data deleted, but some companies honor these requests from people anywhere.
To request deletions from multiple companies in one go, try the Permission Slip tool from nonprofit Consumer Reports. Permission Slip lets you ask a collection of big companies to delete or stop selling your personal data.
Even if you’re someday running for vice president, the odds of your behind-the-scenes Facebook data coming back to haunt you are low — but not zero. Data deletion removes your information from companies’ servers, where many store it indefinitely. Deletion also theoretically stops companies from sharing your data or using it for targeted marketing going forward.
Nicole Markus contributed to this report.
