Tony McChrystal is an online reputation management expert and the Director of Reputation
Defender EMEA. This article will explore the different options available to
people who discover embarrassing images linked to them online.
Whether an innocent photo has been misinterpreted or an embarrassing
photo has been deliberately posted to tarnish a person’s reputation, there are
steps available to remove or at the very least suppress unflattering online
images. The attached infographic contains some interesting statistics about the
most common types of social media post on Instagram and Facebook today.
Anyone can be caught unaware by embarrassing online photos. Unfortunately,
it is not always possible to predict whether a photo posted of a person today
might come back to haunt them later on. Even individuals who are careful about
the types of photos they appear in cannot control every situation. The attached
PDF contains information about Instagram’s community guidelines.
When evaluating images posted online, people need to consider whether it
might call their professionalism into question. Pictures incorporating nudity
can create huge problems from an employment perspective. While the UK
Government has implemented strident measures to tackle the problem of revenge
porn, other cases of photo harassment may be more subtle, with perpetrators
posting images that may be misleading or incendiary to deliberately discredit
the victim and damage their reputation.
As people grow older, their lives change considerably. Old, outdated
images floating around online may not reflect who an individual is today nor convey
their current achievements and interests. However, for people searching online,
these images are likely to feature very prominently.
Even more dangerous is the risk of images that have nothing to do with a
particular person becoming linked to them through similar facial features,
erroneous tagging or any number of reasons. The embedded video takes a deeper
look at issues surrounding Facebook’s facial recognition feature, exploring the
reasons why the facility eventually had to be closed down.
In terms of getting images posted online taken down, the process depends to a large extent on where the photo is posted. Filing social media removal requests may take a little legwork, but if the photo violates the platform’s terms of service, getting them taken down should be a relatively straightforward process. In the case of Facebook, this entails demonstrating that sensitive information is being disclosed, laws are being broken or a person’s privacy is being violated. Other avenues include filing a DMCA takedown notice, a copyright infringement notice or simply burying images that cannot be deleted by consistently posting more accurate, flattering and up-to-date content.
