5 ms·

Delete it Later – Schedule Your Tweets and Facebook Status To Be Deleted Later

46 points by djug 12y ago

djug 12y ago
Delete it Later: Where Facebook and Twitter Meet Snapchat
- eyeareque 12y ago
  Except that I highly doubt facebook and twitter delete all copies of the data.
  - baddox 12y ago
    Do you think Snapchat does?
    - dmix 12y ago
      Even deleted iMessages are marked as "deleted" in the SQLite db but are still around for months.
  - atwebb 12y ago
    Edit the comment once or twice then delete it? They may keep full history though, who knows.
    - eyeareque 12y ago
      Storage is nearly free today; so much like the NSA I'm sure facebook captures and stores everything. Plus it is text; if they had a space problem they could just compress it and store it to huge tapes if disks were too expensive to do that (probably not an issue for FB).
01walid 12y ago
Simple idea, nice hack, I think some people will find this very useful!
bhartzer 12y ago
Great idea, I guess it could be useful for some people. Frankly, I probably wouldn't use it though, since I never really post anything that I think I'll regret later. And when I do, though, I end up manually deleting it.
- Glyptodon 12y ago
  What I'm afraid of is that something that seems totally innocuous now ends up being something that is 'bad' later... What's that? You shared a link to x? You must be a communist 2.0 McCarthyism.
silveira 12y ago
Post it Later would be what I'm looking for.
- batuhanicoz 12y ago
  Have you looked into [Buffer](https://bufferapp.com/ https://bufferapp.com/)?
  - djug 12y ago
    Deleteitlater would be the Anti-Buffer :)
    - svmegatron 12y ago
      You could use DeleteItLater to prevent Buffer Overflow. Sorry, I'll show myself out.
- eli 12y ago
  I think pretty much all "social media management" platforms do that. HootSuite, Buffer, Tweetdeck, etc.
DotSauce 12y ago
Good for a marketing gimmick? Limited time offer: This tweet will self-destruct in 24 hours.
deserted 12y ago
What do you get for $3/month? The Premium page is very unclear.
- djug 12y ago
  it's the unlimited plan (I'll update that page) with the free plan you can schedule up to 5 tweets and 5 facebook status at a time
reuwsaat 12y ago
Facebook is free! (So long as you're comfortable being the product.) I know, I'll create a new account with another service and then pay them to delete my history. Never mind that now yet another company, this time one without an obvious privacy policy, potentially has access to my personal info.
smokinjoe 12y ago
What are the use-cases for something like this? I'm really curious because for me personally, if I were to delete something later then my opinion is that I shouldn't have posted it in the first place. Of course typos and mistakes happen but I feel like those things can't really be scheduled. I guess maybe having it permanently turning on during evening hours to prevent any lasting drunk tweets/posts - but it's the internet, once it's up there and embarrassing it's probably everywhere else too.
- md224 12y ago
  As someone who was just thinking about this concept a week or two ago, I can tell you how I viewed the use case. (And kudos to the developer who actually followed through with building it, unlike me!) To me, it's about subverting the chilling effect that occurs when you're about to say something online and you think "could someone potentially use these words against me?" Not only governments or enemies with grudges, but even future employers with hair-trigger sensitivity doing some kind of background review. Many of us (if not all of us) have opinions or perspectives that may make others uncomfortable, and it seems unfortunate when we censor ourselves for the sake of maintaining a pristine public image. One solution is to simply say whatever you want and then, if you reach a point where you sense that your persona may come under scrutiny (perhaps you're applying for jobs), go back and remove any material that you feel might be used against you. The other solution is this concept of self-deleting messages. Instead of having to go back and find all the things you said that could be liabilities, simply give these comments a maximum lifetime when you make them. It's an efficiency thing. You save yourself the worry of "ah god what if I forget I said this and someone finds it down the road" and you avoid neurosis keeping you silent when you should be able to speak your mind. It seems like a win-win to me. Sure, if somebody REALLY wanted to preserve your statements on the internet, they could do that. And this tool would basically be useless for celebrities or anyone with a significant following. But most of us aren't those people. Our public faces rarely come under scrutiny, but it would be helpful to have a tool that makes it easier to manage when they do.
  - zeroc 12y ago
    Yeah, absolutely my thoughts. Many times I want to post something related to politics and as you know we all have some weird opinions, then a couple of days after that the post becomes obsolete.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Facebook will ban this almost immediately.
amitgupta42 12y ago
Seriously, what is the use-case of this product ?
dorkrawk 12y ago
I was thinking about a product like this marketed at new parents. A lot of people like to post pictures of their kids but I can imagine situations where removing these pictures some time in the future would be really beneficial. Imagine you post a bunch cute pictures of little Jonny as a toddler. Maybe when little Jonny is in high school he doesn't want classmates to be able to find every "cute" picture of him that his mom wanted to share with her friends and family. Obviously once those pictures are "out there" they're potentially out there, but something like this could help, especially for situations years later.
- hayksaakian 12y ago
  Maybe in the future having your baby photos online will be normal? Much like people use their real name online as opposed to 10+years ago
  - fixedd 12y ago
    I can remember (mid-90s) when we thought it was downright scandalous that one of our friends had on his website something to the effect of "About: My name is John Doe and I live at 123 Sesame St. Anytown, AL 00000. If you'd like to send me a letter, I'll respond. If you'd like to stalk me... that information was already available to you."
blyes 12y ago
It's a good concept, but posting using a third-party website is an inconvenience. A simpler way of doing could be for the user to just add hashtags to their statuses (e.g. #12h or #7d), and have the service read and delete statuses accordingly.
- mtpearce 12y ago
  I wrote this app. http://www.hashtag-e.com http://www.hashtag-e.com #e15m
GrinningFool 12y ago
Knowing that nothing is ever verifiably and completely deleted... I'm not sure I see what need this fills.
- droopyEyelids 12y ago
  In general, security is never perfect, so imagining the perfect binary "secure or insecure" isn't useful. Instead, think about it in levels. Is something secure from a casual observer? Is it secure from your teenager who can devote a lot of time to it? What about a professional who devotes a lot of time to it? What about a court order? What about a concerted effort from the government to build an ASIC farm to crack your encryption? You could look at this in the same way. Is your tweet visible to a casual observer? Is it available to a dedicated searcher? Is it available to a technically competent outside searcher? Is it available to police without a warrant? Is it available to someone with superadmin on the database inside Twitter? When you think about it that way, the general utility of the service should be obvious.
shelf 12y ago
I'd like something that deletes everything I post to those services after, say, 90 days. Allow an exception for photos.
- brianbarker 12y ago
  http://www.tweetdelete.net/ http://www.tweetdelete.net/
Ryel 12y ago
I would actually really like something like this. I can't imagine how mad the big guys (Facebook, Twitter, etc) would be if this service grew big
gretchen_204 12y ago
Amazing feature. Just what I needed.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
brianbarker 12y ago
Google "tweet delete all" and see how many web sites already do this. This isn't a naysayer post about your work, but rather a curious observation that maybe these services aren't that well known (or used?). IDK, maybe that gives you a space to take over.
junto 12y ago
I think the use of the word 'delete' should not be taken literally. I believe that Facebook for example simply archives your content for posterity (and the NSA) and then marks your photo record as 'hidden'. It then removes the actual photo from the CDN. Well, that's what I would do if I was in the business of classifying every person on the planet for advertising purposes and security/population control.
bigbugbag 12y ago
/sarcasm Wow! what a deal! give away your login and password to a third party which will tell facebook to hide your user provided content from others users after a while. Until facebook makes this third party forbidden and shuts it down. /sarcasm off it's not the facebook users you should mind but facebook itself, though facebook users are scary for using facebook and giving away all their data in the first place. Facebook is not deleting anything anyway, and will continue to sell your data long after you "blanked" your profile and all its content.
ichaib 12y ago
Nice idea and very neat execution. I like the self-destruct aspect which would help be get excited if you offer them something(think couponing..etc). Personnally I can see myself using it when tweating something very particular and contextual (i.e. agenda of a conference which updates automatically when we progress during the day)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

46 points by djug 12y ago

djug 12y ago

Delete it Later: Where Facebook and Twitter Meet Snapchat

eyeareque 12y ago
Except that I highly doubt facebook and twitter delete all copies of the data.
- baddox 12y ago
  Do you think Snapchat does?
  - dmix 12y ago
    Even deleted iMessages are marked as "deleted" in the SQLite db but are still around for months.
- atwebb 12y ago
  Edit the comment once or twice then delete it? They may keep full history though, who knows.
  - eyeareque 12y ago
    Storage is nearly free today; so much like the NSA I'm sure facebook captures and stores everything. Plus it is text; if they had a space problem they could just compress it and store it to huge tapes if disks were too expensive to do that (probably not an issue for FB).

01walid 12y ago

Simple idea, nice hack, I think some people will find this very useful!

bhartzer 12y ago

Great idea, I guess it could be useful for some people. Frankly, I probably wouldn't use it though, since I never really post anything that I think I'll regret later. And when I do, though, I end up manually deleting it.

Glyptodon 12y ago
What I'm afraid of is that something that seems totally innocuous now ends up being something that is 'bad' later... What's that? You shared a link to x? You must be a communist 2.0 McCarthyism.

silveira 12y ago

Post it Later would be what I'm looking for.

batuhanicoz 12y ago
Have you looked into [Buffer](https://bufferapp.com/ https://bufferapp.com/)?
- djug 12y ago
  Deleteitlater would be the Anti-Buffer :)
  - svmegatron 12y ago
    You could use DeleteItLater to prevent Buffer Overflow. Sorry, I'll show myself out.
eli 12y ago
I think pretty much all "social media management" platforms do that. HootSuite, Buffer, Tweetdeck, etc.

DotSauce 12y ago

Good for a marketing gimmick? Limited time offer: This tweet will self-destruct in 24 hours.

deserted 12y ago

What do you get for $3/month? The Premium page is very unclear.

djug 12y ago
it's the unlimited plan (I'll update that page) with the free plan you can schedule up to 5 tweets and 5 facebook status at a time

reuwsaat 12y ago

Facebook is free! (So long as you're comfortable being the product.) I know, I'll create a new account with another service and then pay them to delete my history. Never mind that now yet another company, this time one without an obvious privacy policy, potentially has access to my personal info.

smokinjoe 12y ago

What are the use-cases for something like this? I'm really curious because for me personally, if I were to delete something later then my opinion is that I shouldn't have posted it in the first place. Of course typos and mistakes happen but I feel like those things can't really be scheduled. I guess maybe having it permanently turning on during evening hours to prevent any lasting drunk tweets/posts - but it's the internet, once it's up there and embarrassing it's probably everywhere else too.

md224 12y ago
As someone who was just thinking about this concept a week or two ago, I can tell you how I viewed the use case. (And kudos to the developer who actually followed through with building it, unlike me!) To me, it's about subverting the chilling effect that occurs when you're about to say something online and you think "could someone potentially use these words against me?" Not only governments or enemies with grudges, but even future employers with hair-trigger sensitivity doing some kind of background review. Many of us (if not all of us) have opinions or perspectives that may make others uncomfortable, and it seems unfortunate when we censor ourselves for the sake of maintaining a pristine public image. One solution is to simply say whatever you want and then, if you reach a point where you sense that your persona may come under scrutiny (perhaps you're applying for jobs), go back and remove any material that you feel might be used against you. The other solution is this concept of self-deleting messages. Instead of having to go back and find all the things you said that could be liabilities, simply give these comments a maximum lifetime when you make them. It's an efficiency thing. You save yourself the worry of "ah god what if I forget I said this and someone finds it down the road" and you avoid neurosis keeping you silent when you should be able to speak your mind. It seems like a win-win to me. Sure, if somebody REALLY wanted to preserve your statements on the internet, they could do that. And this tool would basically be useless for celebrities or anyone with a significant following. But most of us aren't those people. Our public faces rarely come under scrutiny, but it would be helpful to have a tool that makes it easier to manage when they do.
- zeroc 12y ago
  Yeah, absolutely my thoughts. Many times I want to post something related to politics and as you know we all have some weird opinions, then a couple of days after that the post becomes obsolete.

higherpurpose 12y ago

Facebook will ban this almost immediately.

amitgupta42 12y ago

Seriously, what is the use-case of this product ?

dorkrawk 12y ago

I was thinking about a product like this marketed at new parents. A lot of people like to post pictures of their kids but I can imagine situations where removing these pictures some time in the future would be really beneficial. Imagine you post a bunch cute pictures of little Jonny as a toddler. Maybe when little Jonny is in high school he doesn't want classmates to be able to find every "cute" picture of him that his mom wanted to share with her friends and family. Obviously once those pictures are "out there" they're potentially out there, but something like this could help, especially for situations years later.

hayksaakian 12y ago
Maybe in the future having your baby photos online will be normal? Much like people use their real name online as opposed to 10+years ago
- fixedd 12y ago
  I can remember (mid-90s) when we thought it was downright scandalous that one of our friends had on his website something to the effect of "About: My name is John Doe and I live at 123 Sesame St. Anytown, AL 00000. If you'd like to send me a letter, I'll respond. If you'd like to stalk me... that information was already available to you."

blyes 12y ago

It's a good concept, but posting using a third-party website is an inconvenience. A simpler way of doing could be for the user to just add hashtags to their statuses (e.g. #12h or #7d), and have the service read and delete statuses accordingly.

mtpearce 12y ago
I wrote this app. http://www.hashtag-e.com http://www.hashtag-e.com #e15m

GrinningFool 12y ago

Knowing that nothing is ever verifiably and completely deleted... I'm not sure I see what need this fills.

droopyEyelids 12y ago
In general, security is never perfect, so imagining the perfect binary "secure or insecure" isn't useful. Instead, think about it in levels. Is something secure from a casual observer? Is it secure from your teenager who can devote a lot of time to it? What about a professional who devotes a lot of time to it? What about a court order? What about a concerted effort from the government to build an ASIC farm to crack your encryption? You could look at this in the same way. Is your tweet visible to a casual observer? Is it available to a dedicated searcher? Is it available to a technically competent outside searcher? Is it available to police without a warrant? Is it available to someone with superadmin on the database inside Twitter? When you think about it that way, the general utility of the service should be obvious.

shelf 12y ago

I'd like something that deletes everything I post to those services after, say, 90 days. Allow an exception for photos.

brianbarker 12y ago
http://www.tweetdelete.net/ http://www.tweetdelete.net/

Ryel 12y ago

I would actually really like something like this. I can't imagine how mad the big guys (Facebook, Twitter, etc) would be if this service grew big

gretchen_204 12y ago

Amazing feature. Just what I needed.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

brianbarker 12y ago

Google "tweet delete all" and see how many web sites already do this. This isn't a naysayer post about your work, but rather a curious observation that maybe these services aren't that well known (or used?). IDK, maybe that gives you a space to take over.

junto 12y ago

I think the use of the word 'delete' should not be taken literally. I believe that Facebook for example simply archives your content for posterity (and the NSA) and then marks your photo record as 'hidden'. It then removes the actual photo from the CDN. Well, that's what I would do if I was in the business of classifying every person on the planet for advertising purposes and security/population control.

bigbugbag 12y ago

/sarcasm Wow! what a deal! give away your login and password to a third party which will tell facebook to hide your user provided content from others users after a while. Until facebook makes this third party forbidden and shuts it down. /sarcasm off it's not the facebook users you should mind but facebook itself, though facebook users are scary for using facebook and giving away all their data in the first place. Facebook is not deleting anything anyway, and will continue to sell your data long after you "blanked" your profile and all its content.

ichaib 12y ago

Nice idea and very neat execution. I like the self-destruct aspect which would help be get excited if you offer them something(think couponing..etc). Personnally I can see myself using it when tweating something very particular and contextual (i.e. agenda of a conference which updates automatically when we progress during the day)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]