A laundry detergent company claims that its new Facebook application can help students clean up their — well — “dirty laundry.”
The program, called WISK-IT, was created by the makers of Wisk Laundry Detergent to help scour the Web for embarrassing or incriminating photos and then wash them away. It allows users to search tagged, untagged and de-tagged photos in their friends’
Facebook albums and send a direct request for the photo’s removal.
“We saw a great opportunity to leverage Wisk’s brand heritage in stain-fighting power to help solve this problem,” said Elisa Gurevich, Wisk brand manager. “With 50 years of stain fighting under our belt, we know a thing or two about getting things clean.”
Facebook members can download the WISK-IT application for free and choose from three scripted removal requests to send to the owner of a photo that might not be work-appropriate.
Depending on the raunchiness of the photo, the user can send the panicked message, “Are you serious? Please wash this one away!” or the more subdued, “This photo has got to go!”
If the preset requests do not do the job, users can personalize the message to pursuade the user to take down the photo.
Once the photo’s owner receives the removal message, he is prompted to install the WISK-IT application and “wash away” the compromising photo.
Although the program does not guarantee the cooperation of the photo’s owner, it has worked at least once.
“I think this saved my daughter’s job interview,” Facebook mom Gail Sheffler said. “Unless, that is, you would hire someone underage playing beer pong.”
As companies continue to turn to the Web to perform impromptu background checks on potential hires, applications like WISK-IT might become important.
“Facebook has become a common vetting ground in the interview process,” Gurevich said. “That blow-out Saturday night or wild night in Cancun may have been fun, but it can come back and bite you a few years down the road.”
