Time to go back and remove any social media posts you’re concerned about, says expert

It came after he apologised to Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots for posting a tweet concerning the DUP MLA’s wife over the weekend.

Mr Beattie is not the first high-profile name to find himself in trouble over old tweets — and won’t be the last.

Portadown pulled out of signing a deal for Joe Gorman earlier this month following fan backlash over a controversial tweet from 2014.

Gorman apologised after posting: “Ross Kemp in Belfast talking about the Troubles. Wouldn’t you just love to open up on all them Orangemen.”

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland international Dion Charles apologised for tweets which were posted between 2011 and 2013, after signing for Bolton Wanderers in January.

“First of all, I want to say how sorry I am for the hurt I have caused to those who have read my tweets,” he said. “I particularly want to apologise to the LGBTQ+ and Muslim communities for the offensive words I used.”

Online safety expert Wayne Denner, who visits schools to help pupils develop practical tools to stay safe on the internet, said it can be difficult to remember what you have posted in the past.

However, if you do have any concerns Mr Denner said now is the time to go back and remove anything that could be deemed controversial or which could affect future employment.

“There might be a case where you have said something in the past or you’ve made an off the cuff remark or you’ve used some sort of language that was maybe inappropriate,” he said.

“It’s always a good idea for people to audit their own social media profiles. That’s what I say to young people — go back and audit your social media profile.

“Maybe you started off when you were 13 or 14 and now you’re 16 or 17 and you’re starting to think about the world of work and university.

“You don’t want a future employer to be able to type your name into Google and find things you might have posted in the past.

“It does no harm to go back and clean up, remove and tighten up on the privacy settings. Those types of things are really important and that’s what called a social media audit.”

American model Chrissy Teigen publicly apologised and called herself an “insecure, attention seeking troll” after a 2011 tweet told Courtney Stodden to take her own life.

Mariah Carey, Lindsay Lohan, Avril Lavigne, Tamera Mowry and Teen Mom star Farrah Abraham were also subjected to tweets from Teigen, who is married to John Legend.

Elsewhere, cricketer Ollie Robinson (28) posted a series of tweets when he was 18 which resurfaced last year on his England debut.

They included racist and sexist comments, including “females who play video games actually tend to have more sex”. Robinson apologised and insisted he was not racist or sexist.

YouTuber Jack Maynard left I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in 2017 after a series of tweets were discovered while he was in the jungle.

Maynard said he was “ashamed” of the racist and homophobic historical tweets from 2012.

Mr Denner said a simple rule to remember is if you do not want your grandparents to read what you are about to post, then it’s best to not do it.

In 2015, he released a book entitled ‘The Students Guide to an Epic Online Reputation’, providing advice to young people on how to be careful on social media.

However, Mr Denner said the irony is the vast majority of people getting into controversy around historical social media posts are adults.

“The funny thing about everything that’s happening now is it’s the adults a lot of the time that need the education, who maybe didn’t get the educational piece when they were at school or college,” he stated.

“People like myself go into schools giving messages when it comes to protecting and managing your online reputation.

“What I’ve found is a large percentage of the adult population across the world don’t think before they post and think they can freely post comments, say whatever they like in those online spaces, but the reality of it is those things are starting to come home to roost and starting to catch up on people.”

Mr Denner also warned that social media posts on TikTok and Instagram could soon become available on Google search engines and advised everyone to look at their privacy settings.

“If TikTok and Instagram do tie up with Google to make those videos available in search results that’s going to be very worrying for people,” he added.

“That’s going to impact peoples’ online reputation as well because that’s what already happens on Twitter. Our tweets are already available publicly in Google search engine results.”

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