Is Deleting Old Posts Really That Important?

Redact offers you the ability to mass remove all of your posts on a variety of social media platforms. You can schedule regular deletions to recur periodically, nuke everything from orbit all at once, or even target specific kinds of content. While this is cool and all, you may be wondering why somebody would even want to delete their history in the first place?

Internet Archaeology

For many people, having an easily accessible record of your development as a person is a tremendously valuable resource. To go out and scrub it all away would be tragic. However, not every post holds the same amount of sentimental value.

With this in mind, we have to seriously consider the security concerns posed by allowing the digital equivalent to hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of greasy fingerprints to just hang around the internet, begging to be found and abused.

We’ll discuss these by dividing them into three main categories.

Potential security concerns

We’ve already written about the numerous ways in which your posts on social media could cause you damage in terms of security threats. This can include things like personal bits of info (name, name of your pets, name of your family members, etc) being used to access accounts by getting through the security questions, or accidentally (or purposefully) disclosing what city you live in, or even your actual address.

After years of posting, there’s no telling what references you could leave around to these things. Why even risk it? Redact gives you a free, easy way to mass remove all such breaches.

Ever changing you

More than just security concerns, human beings are dynamic, ever-changing creatures. Most of us, especially younger people, don’t really relate to the thoughts and beliefs that we held even 2 or 3 years ago. To have such posts tied to your name indefinitely is needlessly reckless.

Your digital footprint should reflect the best, more updated version of yourself. This not only keeps you out of trouble, but also gives a better impression when it comes time to appeal to a potential employer, partner, landlord, or any number of people who would check out your online presence.

Unknown consequences

In addition to compromising information and a changing personality, social media platforms are dynamic, turbulent places. There’s no way of telling what sorts of crazy things that were totally acceptable in context can come back to haunt you. Rather than scramble after it's too late to fix something, you should stay on top of it. Scheduling regular deletions with Redact’s nifty scheduler makes sure that any damage caused by a new policy or movement is kept to a minimum.

Not convinced?

If you’re truly attached to your posts, then you still have a couple options. First and foremost, you can download an archive of all your posts (depending on the service.) This is incredibly easy to find in most cases, and is a simple google search away.

Additionally, Redact offers you an incredibly powerful set of tools to surgically target certain kinds of information. If you’re worried about maybe having revealed the name of your first pet and leaking a security question, you can punch it in the keyword search, and remove every instance.

There are no excuses! Archive your sentimental posts, preserve them from your deletion, and nuke the rest - it’s for the best. Go to redact.dev/download today to start your journey to a better, safer tomorrow.