Always. Close. Your. Tabs.
It’s surely the cast-iron rule you need to think about before publishing any kind of screengrab to the internet, but it seems that politicians aren’t paying enough attention.
Not long ago we told you about the German mayor who accidentally left some indicators to his late-night entertainment choices on a screenshot he posted in an online debate.
It looks like that warning shot didn’t make it over to America, as a Congressional candidate has made a very similar mistake. Major Mike Webb used a screenshot to illustrate a point in a post to his Facebook page, but it was something else that caught the eye of readers. Close inspection reveals that the politician had left evidence of two page searches: ‘Layla Rivera Tight Booty’ and ‘Ivone Sexy Amateur’.
“What makes you think Layla Rivera is the name of a pornstar?”, defenders of Major Mike Webb might cry. Maybe just do a quick Google search.
The post pretty quickly disappeared from his account – though not before being shared by over 1.6k users – but Mike, who has clearly never heard of the Incognito browser, was determined to come out (ahem) fighting. He decided to introduce another (humongous) post with the line, “THANKS FOR THE TAB CHECK, RANGER BUDDIES!” and a biblical reference, before claiming that the tabs were the result of a virus that had infected his computer.
On top of this, Webb declared that the dodgy screenshot had seen his page likes increase by 25 per cent in one day. He also said the “notorious” post – which he seemed to be treating more like a sort-of internet badge of honour than a spectacular f*ck-up by this point – had reached 200,000 people. There’s no publicity like porn-loving publicity, it seems.
The Facebook reaction to the bizarre explanation was a mixture of amusement, disgust and memes.
Mostly memes, though.
And the whole affair was probably best summarised by a commenter named Alex Frank.
Webb proudly handles all of his social media accounts himself, and signs off each post with the line, “I am Mike Webb, and I am running for U.S. Congress. Honest.”
Too honest, Mike, Too honest.
