Fired Jeb Bush aide Ethan Czahor develops 'Clear' app


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Ethan Czahor (pictured) has launched 'Clear' which removes any posts that might cause you problems with your current or future employer

Ethan Czahor (pictured) has launched 'Clear' which removes any posts that might cause you problems with your current or future employer

A former aide to Jeb Bush who was fired for offensive tweets has developed an app that lets you scrub embarrassing messages from the social network.

Ethan Czahor has launched 'Clear' which removes any posts that might cause you problems with your current or future employer.

Users can search for keywords such as 'gay', 'black' or swear words and the program deletes any tweet that mentions them.

Mr Czahor said hoped the app would ensure others do not suffer the same fate as he did.

In February, Mr Czahor was fired from his job as a chief technology officer for Mr Bush, the former Florida governor and potential 2016 Presidential candidate.

Among the old Twitter messages he posted was one in which he called female students 'sluts'.

One post read: 'When I burp in the gym I feel like it's my way of saying, 'sorry guys, but I'm not gay''.

Mr Czahor told Time magazine: 'Why wasn't I smart enough to take care of this before it happens?

'This could happen to anyone in any field - it doesn't have to be politics - every millennial is now entering the workforce, and maybe even a senior position, and everything they've said online for the last 10 years is still there, and that's a new thing for this generation'.

Mr Czahor said that with Clear a user's tweets are analysed using IBM's Watson supercomputer and put through sentiment analysis to ensure they are taken in context.

In February Ethan Czahor was fired from his job as a chief technology officer for Mr Bush, the former Florida governor and potential 2016 Presidential candidate, for making sexist and homophobic remarks on Twitter

In February Ethan Czahor was fired from his job as a chief technology officer for Mr Bush, the former Florida governor and potential 2016 Presidential candidate, for making sexist and homophobic remarks on Twitter

With Clear a user's tweets are analysed using IBM's Watson supercomputer and put through sentiment analysis to ensure they are taken in context. Users are then given a rating between 0 and 100 as to how safe their profile is and the can act accordingly based on the result

With Clear a user's tweets are analysed using IBM's Watson supercomputer and put through sentiment analysis to ensure they are taken in context. Users are then given a rating between 0 and 100 as to how safe their profile is and the can act accordingly based on the result

Users are then given a rating between 0 and 100 as to how safe their profile is and the can act accordingly based on the result.

HOW TO SPOT AN ONLINE TROLL

Researchers from Stanford and Cornell University recently studied 40 million posts made by 1.7 million web users to try to identify trolls. 

From this data they were able identify so-called Future-Banned Users (FBUs) - and Never-Banned Users (NBUs). 

The former are people that are more likely to exhibit antisocial behaviour on online forums, while the latter are everyday users that don't show signs of troll-like behaviour. 

The researchers then built an algorithm that scans posts for signs of such antisocial behaviour, and a study shows this algorithm can identify potential trolls in 80% of cases.

For example, posts made by trolls are less readable.

Trolls are more likely to veer off-topic and have fewer similarities in terms of language and content compared to other posts.

Trolls are also less likely to use positive words than other users and they swear more. 

In terms of activity, the study found that trolls make more comments each day, and post more times on each thread. 

Trolls were also more likely to have had posts deleted than other users.  

Mr Czahor said: 'The most challenging part of this is determining which tweets are actually offensive, and that's something that will take a while to get really good at'.

He added he also wanted to develop the app so that it worked for other social networks and blogs.

After his tweets became public it emerged that in his personal blog he praised civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. because he 'didn't have his pants sagged to his ankles'.

Mr Czahor said: 'You as a person exist in a lot of places on the internet, and I just feel that you have the right to at least know what's out there, and to take care of it'.

Like the general public, celebrities have often been caught out by old tweets they posted that have come back to haunt them.

And when somebody becomes famous, their messages on social networks going back years are combed through by fans and put under the spotlight.

In the US Trevor Noah, the new host of comedy programme The Daily Show, was criticised for old tweets in which he made anti-Semitic jokes.

He also made jokes about overweight women which sparked criticism that he was the wrong man for the job.

Last year Twitter made it easier to find such messages as its search option allows anyone to comb through every tweet ever published publicly.

Previously you had to scroll through years of tweets or pay for expensive search software.

The app is currently in beta and interested users can register their interest to be told when the app will be available for download from the iOS store. 



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