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App Review: Efemr – ‘This tweet will self destruct in 5…4…’

Alex Walls
May 1, 2013

Efemr

Efemr

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It’s making the tech rounds at the moment, but Efemr is the app which lets you append time limits to your tweets, or affix a self destruct to your social media messages, as the media is reporting it.

The age of Internet paranoia is truly upon us, and probably rightly so; Efemr will delete any tweets after an indicated amount of time, that you might not want future employers to see.

To do this, you sign in with Twitter and then add a hashtag followed by the amount of time you want the tweet to stay live for: #5m deletes a tweet after five minutes, #30m after 30 minutes and so on.

What Mobile’s tests worked, although not within the specified time limit; the tweets were still showing as visible on various devices Twitter feeds after the five minutes had passed.  But eventually they did indeed disappear into the ether.

Now you see it

Now you don't_1

 

Touted as protecting your privacy and controlling your reputation, Digital Trends reported that Efemr alas doesn’t work for retweets or, of course, screenshots (or people’s minds, when you come to it, once they’ve read the darn thing); the site also had issues with the service working.

It’s also worth remembering that nothing ever dies on the Internet, so if it’s questionable, maybe don’t tweet it.  Twitter is, after all, a public forum so the idea you’re putting something out there only to reel it back in a few minutes later is a bit odd. Also, if the app doesn’t work for retweets etc, why not go through with a cooler head and delete them yourself as you will?

However, it’s easy to forget that Twitter is Not Like Facebook, so for those of us without a time machine with which to instruct our younger, more foolish selves, Efemr may just come in handy once in a while.

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