A New Online You, Part 2: Platform by Platform

Check each social network

And now the cleanup begins! Once you've found mentions of yourself all over the web and cleaned up the stuff you control the next step is to take care of undesirable material across search engines and social platforms. 

This is the second of a three-part series on how you can assess and improve your online self. (For Part 1, see A New Year: A New Online You)

Today: Cleaning up your reputation platform by platform

Google offers a variety of pages that help you clean up content on the web:
   • Steps for removing content on someone else's site from Google Search results
   • Report or remove content from Google’s services
   • How to keep personal information out of Google Search results
   • Request removal of an image
   • Request removal of a cached page
   • To report concerns over YouTube content

Facebook:
   • Check your Timeline for material that should be deleted.
   • Check your Photos folder and untag yourself from any images that you no longer wish to be associated with.

And for "Friends" who insist on posting stuff you find objectionable or feel may reflect poorly on you:
   • Step 1: Sign in to your Facebook account.
   • Step 2: Scroll through the news feed in the center of your home page to find the offensive item that you want to delete.
   • Step 3: Hover your mouse pointer over the top right-hand corner of the post to reveal the down-arrow button. Click the down-arrow button.
   • Step 4: Select “Hide Story” from the context menu to delete the offensive post.
   • Step 5: Select “Unsubscribe From [Username]” in the context menu to delete the offensive post and remove all other posts from the user who posted the item.  

Other tips:
   • If you select the Unsubscribe option, Facebook will stop displaying updates or posts from the user in your news feed.
   • You can also report Facebook members who post inappropriate or offensive material. Click on the user’s name in any of his posts in your news feed. Scroll to the bottom of the left-hand menu under the user’s profile picture. Click the blue Report/Block link. Click the radio button beside Block or Unfriend to completely block the user or just remove him from your friends list. Click the button that best describes why you want to report the user; Click Continue to submit the report to Facebook.
   • Report a Facebook Page for offensive content by clicking the "Report this Page" link at the bottom left-hand corner of the Page.

Linkedin: To hide entire sections of your profile:
   • Step 1: Place your cursor over the menu displaying your name at the top of the page and then click "Settings."
   • Step 2: Click "Edit Your Public Profile" under the "Helpful Links" category near the bottom of the page. Options for hiding your profile's content then appear under "Profile Content" on the bottom right side of the page.
   • Step 3: Click "Make My Public Profile Visible to No One" to hide all profile information from appearing.
   • Step 4: Click "Make My Public Profile Visible to Everyone" to show your profile and selected information to the public.
   • Step 5: Clear the box beside any categories listed below this option to hide different sections of your profile, including your headline, current and past positions, certifications, education, websites, groups, interests and skills. However, you can't hide your name, industry, location and number of recommendations.
   • Step 6: Click "Go Back to Settings" to apply the changes.

To Edit or Delete content inside sections of your profile:
• Go to "Profile" on the top left-hand side.
• Click on "Edit Profile" and then click on the section you would like to edit.
• It gives you the option to edit current information, and add and remove content from the section you choose.

Twitter:
   • To report violations such as harassment, impersonation or name squatting, or breach of privacy

Desperate measures:
   • Tweeteraser allows for specific word searches or by-date searches to find tweets you’d like to delete
   • Twitwipe will erase all of your tweets (or at least as many as it can get to)
   • How to deactivate your account

Pinterest:
   • Report objectionable content, spam, a user or a comment

Instagram:
   • Step1: Go to Instagram, click on "Support"
   • Step 2: Click on "Privacy & Safety Center"
   • Step 3: Select the appropriate category

Of course as much as possible you should not ever post anything online that you might regret later. But if you or others have, these links should help.

So what other platforms should you check out and clean up?

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