Avoiding Embarrassing Photo Sharing on Twitter

In light of Rep. Anthony Weiner's embarrassing announcement Monday that he had sent inappropriate pictures of himself to six different women on Twitter it seems that now is the ideal time to discuss how you can avoid suffering a similar fate. After all, posts to social networking services are becoming ever more scrutinized by employers and, in the case of public figures, the press. So we're proud to present PCWorld's 4 step plan to avoid embarrassing photo sharing on Twitter.

Step One: Do not take pictures of yourself wearing little or no clothing and send them to people on Twitter

This should actually be fairly simple as repeating this mistake is a complicated multi-step process. You have to find someone to contact, take the picture itself, and then transmit that picture to them using Twitter. At each step along the process, ask yourself if you are taking a taking an inappropriate picture of yourself and sending it to someone on Twitter. If the answer is yes, STOP.

Step Two: There is no step two!

Seriously, if you've mastered step one then you are golden on this one. Give yourself a pat on the back but be warned, congratulating yourself on Twitter for not posting inappropriate pictures of yourself is probably also not a good plan.

Step Three: Don't have a name that makes it even more embarrassing if you forget step one.

Okay so something has gone horribly wrong. You've somehow managed to forget step one. It's damage control time. First of all check your last name. If what you've done goes public, will people be making hilarious puns based on your name? If so, you might consider changing it. Perhaps the most tragic part of this whole affair is that Rep. Weiner had to have known these puns were coming, as his speech at the Congressional Correspondents' Dinner earlier this year makes clear the burden of being named Anthony Weiner is not lost on the man, unless it seems, he is using Twitter.

Step Four: Really, just read step one

While this may seem simplistic and we're obviously having a little fun at Rep. Weiner's expense this does seem like the ideal reminder that nothing is really private on the internet. If you have concerns that something you're about to post (be it on Twitter, or Facebook, or wherever) might come back to haunt you, your best bet is to just not press send. It's the best privacy advice we've found for the Web and, who knows, it might save your political career one day.