Fix your Facebook follies

FaceSaver Facebook cleanup app
$2.99 for iOS devices at the Apple App Store; Android version under development

You’ll be shocked to learn that some people use foul language in their Facebook postings. And those who do are sometimes shocked to find that their vulgar ramblings can get them in trouble with parents or employers. Luckily, an Irish entrepreneur has come up with a way to help people track down and delete their most tasteless Facebook comments.

FaceSaver scans alll the text you’ve typed into Facebook, and compares your words to a blacklist of terms you shouldn’t use in polite company. All the scanning is done on the iPhone; the company doesn’t copy your messages onto a remote server, in order to protect your privacy. Yet the process only takes about a minute.

My search came up with a lot of false positives. The app developer said that the software casts a very broad net, looking for any potentially offensive strings of letters, even when they appear in innocuous words like “Massachusetts” and “analyst.” Besides, FaceSaver doesn’t delete anything; it just shows you the possibly salacious posts, leaving you to wipe them out or not.

My readers are clean-living sorts who’d never dream of using vulgar words in their Facebook postings. Still, FaceSaver may be a useful little clean-up tool for your dirty-minded friends.