You sometimes see celebrities delete their social media profiles. They may delete all of their pictures off of Instagram, for example, or delete their entire Facebook profile.
One potential reason why people do this is that they are afraid that they may be facing criminal charges. If they think that there is evidence of those allegations online, they may try to delete content that could be used as evidence against them.
It’s not just celebrities who do this. It could be as simple as someone who has been accused of selling drugs to another person. There are posts on their social media profiles from that alleged buyer, so they delete all of their activity in hopes that it won’t be used as evidence in the case.
Why doesn’t this work?
The problem is that you can never truly delete things that have been put on the Internet. They often still exist in some capacity.
For example, you may have deleted your social media profile, but does the company that runs that social media site still have the records? Or you may have deleted all of the comments that you posted on a site like Twitter or Threads, but did someone else already take screenshots of those posts?
You can delete your own activity, but there may be backups or screenshots somewhere else. Other people may have saved pictures on remote hard drives or they may be able to use computer systems – such as the Wayback Machine – to look at websites even long after they’ve been changed or deleted. That digital information can often be recovered, even if the person who deleted it thought that it was gone forever.
This can become very important in a criminal case, especially if digital evidence is being used. Those facing charges need to be well aware of their legal defense options.