Have you ever published something online and later wished you had not?
One thing I have learned is that everything you publish on the Internet should be assumed to be public.
Even when you use a “private” platform to share something (whether it is a text, photo, video, or personal journal entry) you are still trusting someone else to protect that information. That platform could be hacked, suffer a data breach, or have your information exposed and redistributed without your knowledge. What you thought was private could eventually find its way into places you never intended, including the public Internet or the dark web.
That is why you should be very deliberate and intentional about everything you publish online.
Think of it like sending a message in a bottle into the ocean.
Once you throw that bottle into the water, you no longer control where it goes, who finds it, or how many people eventually read the message inside. It may drift for years before someone comes across it. And many of the people who find it may never tell you they did.
The Internet is not much different.
Once something is published, you can delete it from your account, but you cannot guarantee that it has been completely erased. Someone may have downloaded it, taken a screenshot, copied it, archived it, or shared it somewhere else.
So before you publish anything online, ask yourself:
Would I be comfortable with this becoming public someday?
If the answer is no, think twice before posting it.
Be deliberate. Be intentional. And remember: once you send something into the digital world, you may never get it back.