How can your ‘deleted’ Facebook status get you fired

Three years ago, Gregory Gopman, founder of AngelHack, make a mistake.

In his own words–“I wrote an arrogant post on Facebook running the drug dealers, mentally ill, prostitutes, and the homeless people on Market Street in San Francisco.” Later, he realized his mistake and publicly apologized on Facebook.

Recently, it was revealed that he was hired by Twitter to lead the company’s VR initiatives as a project manager. The very next day, he wrote on Facebook–“Anddd I’m fired, Thanks TechCrunch.” Actually, the tech site wrote a piece on him and, apparently, Twitter didn’t want to deal with all the attention. So, they decided to fire him.

In the past, Gopman has been heavily scorched for the post, which he has since deleted. This recent development raises questions regarding Twitter’s hiring policies. Were they really aware of Gopman’s remarks about the homeless people? Did they hire him anyway and fired him because of the controversial news reports?

This revelation comes when Twitter’s future isn’t looking bright and its investments in VR/AR aren’t showing any promise. Companies like Disney and Salesforce have been making bids to buy the company. On the other hand, Facebook, its competitor, is leading the VR innovation and social media arena.

Whatever might be the real reason behind Gopman’s loss, there’s no denying the fact that your social media past can come back and haunt you. Last year, we reported a similar story about a 27-year-old single mom Kaitlyn Walls, who complained about her new workplace on Facebook and got sacked.