What do elephants, rock and roll and the internet all have in common?
They never forget.
For the average person, the retention skills of pachyderms and rock music have little effect on their daily lives (unless you’re a Bob Seger fan). The digital memory of the internet, however, can be a trickier thing to navigate.
You’ve probably heard some version of this common refrain, especially since the advent of social media: “Be careful what you post on the internet because it never really goes away.” Messages, images and videos that have been shared online always have the potential to resurface. And as we’ve seen, when the content of those posts is, say, less than ideal, it can cause a great deal of embarrassment and detriment to the poster—even years later.
But could an ill-advised post prevent your child from getting into the college of their choice?
No Admission
In 2017 and again in 2019, Harvard University was involved in high-profile cases where they revoked the admission of students who had posted offensive messages online. The first situation involved a group of 10 students who had taken part in a Facebook group that posted jokes about child abuse and the Holocaust alongside derogatory racial statements.
The second situation, and perhaps the more controversial, saw Harvard revoking admission to Kyle Kashuv, a well-known conservative activist. After learning about a series of social media posts from Kashuv that included racist language, including multiple uses of the n-word, Harvard denied him admission. Kashuv expressed his regret over the posts, citing personal growth in the years since, but Harvard upheld its revocation.
This decision launched a firestorm of debate over whether a college could (and should) deny admission to prospective students for the mistakes they made in the past, especially in their younger teenage years.
Regardless of the myriad views on that topic, these stories emphasize the potential for past mistakes on social media to be exposed—and magnified—and for consequences to follow.
That said, despite these high-profile instances, the odds that your student’s college application will be rejected for a social media post are very low. The sheer scope of applications makes scouring through each and every applicant’s social accounts impractical. But it is a possibility, and it’s a good reason to talk to your kids about the importance of giving thought to what they post online.
AI, I Trusted You
However, there’s another thing that parents should caution their kids about: Recently, users of Anthropic’s Claude found that their “private conversations” with the artificial intelligence chatbot were suddenly public knowledge on Google and Bing.
The issue occurred only with Claude users who had opted to “share” their chats with someone. However, those conversations—which included medical records, corporate information and even explicit content—weren’t meant to be shared with everyone.
This issue isn’t limited to Claude, either. Private chats in ChatGPT and Grok experienced a similar exposure last year.
It’s something to talk about with your kids. As I said, the odds that your child’s college application would be rejected for a chat with an AI agent are pretty low. However, the embarrassment that could surface if “private” chats were exposed can still be detrimental for a young person trying to make their way in the world.
As parents, stay updated on the ways to better protect the conversations you have online. And make sure your kids understand that, just because AI chats claim to be private, they might not always stay that way. Similarly, just because a social media profile is set to private, online friends with access to those profiles can share screenshots of ill-advised posts.
Remember: The internet, like an elephant, never forgets.
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