Science & Tech

This app can delete all your embarrassing posts on social media

Going for a new job? Nosy in-laws poring over your profile? About to be thrust into the media limelight? There'd be little worse than someone digging out those drunken bar crawl shots from your Zante '07 Facebook album.

But worry no longer. Instead of having to browse through all your posts over the years, there's a new app that could soon do the leg work for you, deleting anything that looks like it could be cause for embarrassment.

'Clear' was set up by Ethan Czahor - a former communications officer for Jeb Bush who lost his job after a series of old tweets of his were, in his own words, "unearthed [and] spun completely out of context to make me appear as someone I am certainly not".

The former improv comedian and startup founder says he set up the app, which can connect to your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles, in order to "make sure situations like mine never happen to anyone ever again".

'Clear', which is in beta stage at the moment, works by combing through your social media feeds using its own algorithms as well as IBM's Watson supercomputer to highlight keywords such as swearing or anything that refers to a specific group like gay people or women.

According to Mashable, being able to identify potentially embarrassing photos or videos is on the "roadmap" for the app in the future.

In the meantime then, try the old fashioned trick of not posting anything embarrassing in the first place.

More: Facebook considering developing tech to stop you drunk posting

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