back to article Deleted Tweets found living in the hereafter

Careless Twitterers are in for a healthy dose of Web 2.0 reality with the advent of a site that shows it's not really possible to purge errant tweets, as the microblogging site might have them believe. It has long been plenty easy for world+dog to find a user's deleted posts by using Twitter's advanced search page. Now, a site …

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  1. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects
    Paris Hilton

    Flail and me.

    I have the pleasure of the BBC following my every post, so am hampered forevermore from ever using another account and name.

    What can I do? I don't want to lose them.

  2. James O'Brien
    Joke

    Twitterers = TWATS

    That is all

  3. mittfh

    Not just Tweets

    I've noticed Google visits a BBC blog where I'm a regular at least once an hour. So taking that as a benchmark, it's probably safe to say that anything published online for at least one hour may not be able to be permanently deleted. In the case of personal websites (NOT social networking profiles - proper websites), you may be able to get away with up to a day or so (i.e. if it's rarely visited, so search engines won't find it in a hurry), but after that the information is likely to exist on your hosting provider's backup tapes long after you've deleted it.

    There's one simple rule to follow: if you wouldn't be happy for the information to be displayed on a billboard in your town centre, don't publish it :)

  4. Graham Lockley

    Not here

    >Twitterers who got duped into revealing their "porn star name," etc.

    Any scammer/spammer/hacker who can guess anything from my 'porn star name' is a bloody genius !

    So guys say hello to Noddy Hill, not used for a username or password ANYWHERE.

    Not much of a porn name either really :(

  5. Jeremy

    Porn star name...

    Is that old chestnut still doing the rounds then? I'm amazed how many people don't see what's wrong with that ruse....

  6. Ros

    The Noarchive Initiative

    That's another good reason to opt your websites out of the search engine cache. This website explains how you can do that, and links to some discussions about why you might want to:

    http://noarchive.net/

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tweleted fail?

    Seems they may have been kicked off the twitter API - as that is all I get when I try and search for a name.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    But... but...

    ... but we can't delete deleted tweets! It's dangerous! If you make us delete deleted tweets, your children will all die of swine flu!

    (Oh. Sorry. That's Google, isn't it, not Twitter.)

  9. IPB
    Paris Hilton

    I thought the porn star

    thing was only of any use when you were asked to use your first pets name and your mothers maiden name.

    Surely knowing someone's mothers maiden name is 100 times more useful than the pet/street combination?

    My first pet was called Pussy. I have a great porn name.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    About time they learned

    Anyone interested in their micro blog or whatever Twitter is actually supposed to be is obviously planning something devious. These Twits are letting us down. Setting the precedent that telling the world + dog what you're doing all the time is not only acceptable but desirable too.

    So some smug MP can say it's okay to spy on us because we don't want privacy anyway. Just as long as he and his children can opt out of the big spy database, of course. Bah.

  11. Cameron Colley

    @Graham Lockley

    Perhaps not from your porn star name since you've only given us half your street name and, being a Reg reader, you're unlikely to have used "Name of my first pet" as a security question for your bank website -- other's aren't so clued up.

    Oddly I didn't know that the "porn star name" and others were well known fishing scams -- I thought I worked it out for myself.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Never gonna make porno

    I've never had a pet, and have been homeless for most of my childhood... :'-(

  13. Random Noise
    Coat

    @ IPB

    "My first pet was called Pussy. I have a great porn name."

    What kind of dog was it?

  14. Mike Bronze badge

    Title?

    Name Address and DOB give someone full access to your bank account? better start warning people who put up "Happy Birthday John" type signs in their windows!

  15. Christopher Ahrens
    Alert

    People need to remember

    That once something is on the Internet, it will always be there.Never assume otherwise.

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