Getting Started

Pictures taken at a party can look odd when taken out of context. Even if you aren’t doing anything wrong, people you know may get the wrong impression once they see them outside of an event.

A good friend of mine recently found this out the hard way after he attended a belated Christmas party along with his wife where someone thought it would be funny to pass around an inflatable young lady (no I don’t know if they make inflatable men and I don’t want to know).

Everyone at the party thought it was hilarious and my friend, being a good sport, posed for a picture with the plastic princess. No one thought anything about it, until.

When the pictures showed up on Facebook it was a different story. My friend got an email from a co-worker telling him to check his Facebook wall. When he saw the picture, he was a little embarrased because he realized that there was now an office full of people who could all see the same picture but none of them would understand why it was taken.

Since he works in a traditionally conservative industry, having pictures of himself on the Internet with a blow up doll doesn’t really make for a good Monday. Fortunately, he was able to get the picture removed while it was still just an office chuckle.

So what does this mean to you?

For one thing, it means that anything and everything is recordable now. Whether it’s audio, video, or still images, everything can be captured. And, with the proliferation of Internet connected devices, everything can be readily published, immediately.

Here are some things you can do if an unflattering image of you shows up on Facebook.

• Remove tags – The first thing you can do is click “remove tag” on any tags that mention your name. This will remove them from the “View pictures of” on your profile.
• Ask directly – Because your friend could still be posting unwanted pictures of you, it’s a good idea to ask them directly to remove the photos.
• Be specific - Most friends will have posted more than one picture of you, so be specific about which picture you would like to have removed. Avoid saying “remove every picture of me”, because this is extreme and a slightly inconsiderate, especially if there are others in the picture who want to see their pictures.
• Be polite – Focus on the photos you want removed and be polite. Be considerate of your long term relationship with this person.
• Report the photo – If your friend doesn’t listen to you, then you can click “Report this photo“. I personally haven’t had to do this, but its always an option if you are really desperate to have the photo removed. This may get the your friend in trouble with Facebook, so warn them if you’re serious, or just decide to live with the photo.
• Privacy settings – If you still have a problem, you can adjust with your privacy settings. Click privacy on the top right side of any Facebook page. Click profile. You can arrange it so that either all of your networks and friends see photos tagged of you, or specific networks and all friends see photos tagged of you, or just friends see photos tagged of you, or just you see photos tagged of you. This is a broad stroke approach, and it will depend on the picture whether you want to take this approach.

In the end, my friend only suffered a small amount of embarrassment and overall he probably wouldn’t alter his personality drastically to make the rest of the world happy. But, in those cases where the situation and the image just don’t make sense outside of the live event, it’s best to know how to handle things.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com