Could these Free Google Apps Have Prevented the Anthony Weiner Photo Scandal?

^{Image courtesy of jeffmcneill via Flickr}

Since news broke that Rep. Anthony Weiner had tweeted explicit photos of himself to several women, things have been getting progressively worse for the Congressman. Although Weiner has entered rehab, Democrats and Republicans alike are pressuring him to resign.

Obviously, Weiner's actions were wrong because they betrayed his wife's trust. They were also surprisingly careless considering his prior reputation as being pretty social media-savvy.

Weiner's Twitter slip-up appears to have been the difference of a single character. When using TweetDeck, a Twitter application for smartphones, User 1 must write the letter "D" before User 2's Twitter handle if they want to send a direct message as in: "D User2 Hello, I'm direct messaging you."

If User 1 wants to publicly address User 2, User 1 would type the "@" symbol before User 2's handle ala: "@User2 Hello, I'm tweeting at you."

As you've probably guessed, Weiner mistakenly used an "@" in place of a "D" and here we are...

While I doubt many readers are engaged in behavior as scandalous as Weiner's, there are a host of less newsworthy ways in which people embarrass themselves on social media every day. Maybe you didn't intend to publicly tweet your distaste for the sweater your grandma gave you for your birthday.  Maybe you meant to search for an acquaintance on Facebook, but instead accidentally posted their name as a status update.

Here are a few free tools to prevent such embarrassments courtesy of Google.

Google Chrome's Internet Shame Insurance

Inspired by the very Weiner scandal of which we speak, Google Chrome's Internet Shame Insurance extension pops up with a warning before you update your Twitter or Facebook, or hit "reply all" in Gmail. The warning messages are semi-jocular: If you go to post on Facebook, the extension will caution you that "Everyone can see this. That includes your grandma, your priest, and your thought-controlling government."

These jokes are a little silly, but I think the extension is a smart solution to a common problem. If you're prone to these types of mistakes, it's worth trying out.

Gmail Mail Goggles

Gmail Mail Goggles wants to prevent you from "sending mail you later regret." This feature aims to ensure that you're good and clear-headed when you send an email--specifically, when you send an email late at night on a weekend, which scientists agree is the most regrettable time to do so. To make sure you're thinking clearly, Mail Goggles asks you to answer a series of simple math problems before you can send the email. By default, it's set to only harass you with math late on weekend nights, but you can adjust the settings to enable it at anytime. Hopefully, you're not imbibing to the point of needing such a service at 10 am on a Wednesday.  Even during sober times, though, solving those math problems might take just enough time to allow you to cool down before sending that email rant to your co-worker.

Gmail's "Undo Send" Button

Once again, Google is ahead of its regret-filled time with a very basic but very useful feature. The undo send button is exactly what it sounds like--it lets you "take back" an email you've just sent.  Once you enable it in Gmail, the button will appear as an option every time you send an email. You can adjust the settings to allow you to rescind your email for up to 30 seconds after you've pressed "send." I recommend setting it to this 30-second maximum, because why not? I'd set it to 10 years if I could.

Microsoft Outlook has a similar option that actually lets you recall an unread email at any time. That's a great feature if I ever saw one, but not quite great enough that I'd betray my loyalty to Gmail.

For more ways to protect your online reputation from social media blunders, check out Diane's post on social network privacy measures.

Do you know of any other tools that help users avoid Internet embarrassment? Let me know in the comments.