Time for a FaceWash

FaceWash

I stumbled on an interesting article the other day. With all the constantly changing apps and privacy settings in the world of social media, it's hard to keep up with it all, especially if you are trying to manage how your social media profiles make you look out in the "real world." In the increasingly difficult job market, young professionals and recent college grads need every advantage they can get. Hiring managers are getting more clever (if not downright unscrupulous) in their screening of potential employees, and your online profiles are part of you and can haunt you if you're not careful. Your internet "face" much like your real face needs a good cleansing from time to time.  This is where 3 computer science majors from Kent University come in. They attended an event at the University of Pennsylvania called Hackathon. There they presented their idea for a new app called FaceWash.

FaceWash is an app you can connect to through your Facebook (Twitter app coming soon) profile. You run the wash and it goes through your entire history to find comments, tags, photos, liked pages, etc and find things that you might not want to share with mixed company or a future employer or your mother. I think it's really quite ingenious for people who might have had too much fun in college and are now trying to be real live adults in the corporate world. I am not one of those people. I did have fun in college, but I have since gone back through and gotten rid of a lot of things I no longer wished to share with people. Since Facebook was still in its infancy when I was in college, we didn't understand the privacy settings and it was only usable by people with a college e-mail address. We could not foresee the importance Facebook would one day play in our society. The Facebook pond was much smaller then than it is now.  Even so, I thought for shits and giggles I would run a FaceWash on my personal FB account (not my GurlNxtDoor page.) Here's what I came up with:

Words I use most often which FaceWash finds to be uncouth:

-Suck (as in "this situation sucks" or "you can suck it" or "suck it up")
Ok, so not the most lady-like of words, but I've said worse.

-Shit 
Yes, I do say this one a bit. Yes it's a "swear." Point: FaceWash

-Ass (not always referring to "butt" mind you. Sometimes it's a donkey.)
Ok, yeah I do say this one A LOT.  Usually the word bad is in front of it.

-Butt
Really FaceWash?! "Butt" is a bad word??? Are we five? My doctor says butt!

-Girl on (as in "I heard this girl on the the street say...")
This isn't even remotely inappropriate! It flagged this, but not gurlongirlgaming.com.
Interesting. Loophole!

-Sex (as in "sex change"-a legitimate medical procedure)

-Sex (as in a link I posted about a woman who saved hundreds of girls from sex slavery)
*Sigh* context is everything.

-Raping
I found 2 comments from friends made ages ago with this word. I did not find it funny then and I still don't. Rape isn't funny. I promptly deleted these comments on my Facebook. 
Point: FaceWash

-Hooker (a description of a production still photo from when I portrayed a cop arresting a hooker)
Again, context.

-Sexy (as in "oh that dress is sexy" or "that girl is sexy")
Is there a context algorithm?

-Fucking (as an adjective, not a verb)
This was said by a friend on one of my pics. Is it a "swear?" Yeah. Am I concerned about it? No. But, still, I will concede the point to FaceWash 
(for those of you keeping track, that's 3)

FaceWash also flagged 21 of the pages that I like on Facebook. I won't go into all 21 of them, but I will cherry-pick some of the most ridiculous ones. (I should also clarify that I am cherry-picking for time, not because I'm into some weird shit that I don't want you guys to know about. Honest.)

These are some things I like on Facebook that were flagged with the offending  word in their title:
-ShitMyDadSays (oh come on! Who doesn't follow this guy?)

-Sex, Thugs, and Rockin' Rolls (a one-act play festival Boyfriend was in years ago)

-Fuck Cancer (yes it has "fuck" in the title, but it is a good cause. Again with the context)

-Sexy Nerd Girl (not going to even dignify this with an answer)


-Geeks Are Sexy (see above)


-The Vagina Monologues (if you are unfamiliar with this powerful play by Eve Ensler, do yourself a favor and read this, see this. Vagina is not a bad word.)

And finally, the page I liked that made the least amount of sense:
*drum roll*

-Wonder Woman Boyshorts 3-pack of panties
You'll never guess which word flagged this. Guess. 
NO! It was panties. PANTIES.I had a friend in high school who hated this word. I think it's cute.  But it's not inappropriate, right? It's something a little girl says. Like puppy. 

Or "puppy panties" which are a real thing btw. But, I digress.

So, what do I think of FaceWash? I'm a little on the fence. I think the idea behind the app is brilliant, and I think that as they continue tweaking the sensitivity of the algorithms, it can only get better (it is still in Beta.) Does the app have practical applications? Yes and no. For people like me, who are fairly reserved or scrupulous with their social media goings-on (having parents and young siblings online will motivate you do this) then we really have little to fear about our profiles on Facebook. Plus, I never "friend" people I work with, or don't know IRL, that's what LinkedIn is for.  But, for those people who have 5,000 "friends" and maybe went a little crazy in college and realize they need to "clean up" their online image because they want to be a lawyer or "respectable" in the corporate world, then I think the seemingly-anal-retentiveness of the words the app will flag as undesirable is a good thing.

So, is this app for me? Not really. But, I think it's good for everyone to use it at least once just for funsies, and you never know what you might uncover. Your online dirt has a way of creeping into the deepest darkest corners of the internet and then rearing its ugly head at the worst possible moment for you. I will also say that my profile was waaaaay "cleaner" than I was expecting it to be. After looking at all the flagged words and phrases on my FaceWash, I personally wouldn't want to work for anyone who would look at my profile and deliberately not hire me based on a couple of swears and the type of underwear I like.

Word.

Thanks Dr. Robyn Silverman for this photo.