{"id":35107,"date":"2026-02-10T09:09:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T09:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/10\/what-to-do-when-you-regret-a-social-media-post-explained\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T09:09:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T09:09:40","slug":"what-to-do-when-you-regret-a-social-media-post-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/10\/what-to-do-when-you-regret-a-social-media-post-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"What to do when you regret a social media post, explained"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The internet is an archive of so many different versions of ourselves. If you\u2019re Gen Z or a millennial, there\u2019s a good chance you preserved almost every stage of your life online: old fandoms, old friends, old opinions. And with that comes an inevitable cringe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So what do you do when you see something embarrassing you posted years ago? You may be tempted to go scorched earth, but journalist and Wall Street Journal contributor Alexandra Samuel says that\u2019s not necessarily the best course of action. \u201cI think that you need to think about deleting things you\u2019ve posted as curation,\u201d she told Vox.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe Internet Archive<\/a> keeps snapshots of all kinds of things on the internet, so you need to be aware that when you delete something, it might be deleted for you,\u201d Samuel said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s deleted from the internet. I think when you delete things, it\u2019s always a good idea to back them up before you delete them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What other options do you have when you look back on an old post and cringe? And how should we be thinking about our life\u2019s digital archive? We answer these questions on Explain It to Me, <\/em>Vox\u2019s weekly call-in podcast.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Below is an excerpt of my conversation with Samuel, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, or wherever you get podcasts. If you\u2019d like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Was there a moment when online regret and shame first grabbed your attention?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Absolutely. In June 2011, Vancouver lost the Stanley Cup to Boston, and people went nuts. There was this riot in the streets, and what made that riot notable is that for the first time, it was captured in real time on social media. It was the heyday of Twitter. People were tweeting photos. People were making videos and posting them on YouTube. There was initially a lot of excitement about the idea that like, \u201cWe\u2019re going to be able to catch the people who are flipping cars and breaking into store windows.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I saw this unfolding literally that evening, online. And I thought, \u201cThis is not a good plan.\u201d History teaches us that when we start narcing on our fellow citizens and stepping into that quasi-surveillance role, it tends to go very, very badly. I wrote a piece that evening for the Harvard Business Review about why this phenomenon of citizen surveillance through social media was so problematic. And I got a lot of pushback.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s interesting that so many people\u2019s gut reactions were like, \u201cOkay, but what if I snitched?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I think there\u2019s something really delightful about outrage as a subjective experience. We live in a really complicated world. There\u2019s a lot of gray. There\u2019s a lot of nuance. It\u2019s really hard to feel like a morally upright person if you shop on Amazon and put gas in your car. And these moments where we\u2019re shaming people online give us a little moment of moral superiority.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What\u2019s the argument for not deleting old posts?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Imagine a scenario where you\u2019ve posted something on Instagram or TikTok. You realize afterwards that you were kind of an idiot, and you wish you hadn\u2019t said what you said. Maybe you even had a back-and-forth in the comment thread where someone pointed out why what you said was insensitive and you showed some capacity for learning. If you delete it without archiving it [and] it comes back to haunt you, you don\u2019t have that evidence of you learning. It\u2019s much better to take the screenshots, archive the thread, and back up all that context so that if it does still come back to haunt you or even if you just want to reflect on it, [you can].<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever gone back and read old journals, but I have. And every time I think, \u201cWhat old me thought is none of my business.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s funny you said that. I\u2019ve literally had that exact experience of rereading old journals. We just all need to realize that by definition, anything that is a snapshot is a two-dimensional image of something that we experienced. Whether you\u2019re looking at your own history of something that you did, or if you\u2019re looking at something someone else said, I just wish we could have a little more tenderness and empathy and focus on what people learn and how we grow rather than judging everyone by their most awful moment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Do you have any advice for best practices when it comes to having a social media presence you won\u2019t be ashamed of in 10 or 20 years?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Trying to have a social media presence where you never regret anything is a recipe for having a completely meaningless and stupid social media presence. Conversely, I think it\u2019s important to resist the lure of the hot take. What you need to do is try and chart that middle ground where you don\u2019t court controversy for its own sake. When you\u2019re deliberately pushing people\u2019s buttons, that\u2019s when you end up saying things that don\u2019t reflect what you truly believe. But if your goal is to have a social media presence where you never regret anything, then truly don\u2019t be online. I actually think it\u2019s a really, really good option now. If I were not a journalist for whom part of the job is showing up online, I do not know if I would use social media anymore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It sounds like if you\u2019re going to share anything online, that feeling of regret may be inevitable. How do you survive it?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The first thing to do is take yourself out of it, depersonalize it, and think, \u201cIf this were happening to a friend, what would I think here?\u201d Don\u2019t hesitate to admit if you think you were wrong, but don\u2019t rush to respond either. You need to close the computer, put the phone down, walk away. Talk to somebody with good judgment and ask what they think. The internet moves quickly, but unless you are a celebrity and you\u2019re getting a hundred thousand responses an hour, there\u2019s actually no reason that three crappy comments can\u2019t wait to be addressed the next day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And then you absolutely can say you\u2019re wrong. I actually think one of the most powerful things that we can do as humans, as professionals, and as internet users: Show that you can be wrong and you can even be wrong on the internet, and it doesn\u2019t kill you. It doesn\u2019t destroy your value as a human.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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