The End of Forgetting 329
Hugh Pickens recommends a long piece in last week's NY Times Magazine covering a wide swath of research and thinking in the US and elsewhere on the subject of the perils to society of recording everything permanently, and the idea that perhaps we ought to build forgetting into the Internet. "We've known for years that the Web allows for unprecedented voyeurism, exhibitionism, and inadvertent indiscretion, but we are only beginning to understand the costs of an age in which so much of what we say, and of what others say about us, goes into our permanent — and public — digital files. The fact that the Internet never seems to forget is, at an almost existential level, threatening to our ability to control our identities; to preserve the option of reinventing ourselves and starting anew. In a recent book, Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, the cyberscholar Viktor Mayer-Schönberger cites the case of Stacy Snyder — who was denied a teaching certificate on the basis of a single photo on MySpace — as a reminder of the importance of 'societal forgetting.' By erasing external memories, he says in the book, 'our society accepts that human beings evolve over time, that we have the capacity to learn from past experiences and adjust our behavior.' In traditional societies, where missteps are observed but not necessarily recorded, the limits of human memory ensure that people's sins are eventually forgotten. By contrast, Mayer-Schönberger notes, a society in which everything is recorded 'will forever tether us to all our past actions, making it impossible, in practice, to escape them.' He concludes that 'without some form of forgetting, forgiving becomes a difficult undertaking.'"
Learning Without a Negative Response? (Score:5, Interesting)
By erasing external memories, he says in the book, 'our society accepts that human beings evolve over time, that we have the capacity to learn from past experiences and adjust our behavior.'
But what if there is no negative response to your behavior? I mean, in the situation quoted in the summary there was no illegal activity. A high school teacher went to a party and got drunk. Nothing illegal there. Sounds like she had some fun (the horror!). So let's assume no picture was taken and no picture was posted on MySpace and she wasn't terminated from her teaching position or dropped from her enrollment in teaching. What negative response would she receive that would stop her from ever doing that again?
None.
Because there shouldn't be a negative response to that. This is some scarlet letter bullshit where no laws are broken but you've offended someone's morals even though it was on your own time and therefore you should be fired. This isn't about forgetting on the web, it's about managing your public image. Some people are slow to catch on that if it's on the internet, the world can see it. So don't put your dirty laundry on the internet. There are plenty of bumps on the social side of things. Plenty of embarrassing social gaffs on sites like MySpace and Facebook but for things like forums and Slashdot it's great that everything is permanently remembered for reference in the future.
Really this is just the old Facebook privacy issue and their total abuse of their clients. Balancing features with privacy is nothing new -- it's just on a much much larger level now.
A boon for technical searches (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Posting is forever (Score:4, Interesting)
Facebook never permanently deletes your stuff, though. Read the ToS.
Just don't share anything (Score:1, Interesting)
Do what I do. I exist and consume services. I don't put my name against anything online. Even if you found me, you wouldn't know anything about me. It's bound to pay off once every second person has crap coming up when they are googled. I automatically eliminate at least half the competition this way.
not enough recording (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that not everyone has been recorded on the Internet doing something which might meet the disapproval of others, even though everyone has done such a thing. Once no-one is able to cast the first stone, everyone's equal again.
The winners are only those who aren't caught - usually by chance rather than design - and those who have the influence to erase history.
Perhaps one day a student union of a first tier college will be enlightened and recommend that all its members take one photo of themselves naked cuddling a blow-up doll and holding a bottle of vodka. If this practice spreads like the spawn of Satan that was Facebook, suddenly employers will find that all their candidates have the naked-sheep-vodka pose. Demand > supply of Chrisian virgin angels. Attitude readjusted.
the long view (Score:2, Interesting)
I realise this is all very well for me to say, but I've always known that this was the case and acted accordingly. On a simple level, I've never said anything online that I wouldn't say to my mother or I wouldn't be prepared to stand behind in future. There is no such thing as anonymity on the 'net, never has been. That's the reason why I don't have alt's. There isn't anything to gain.
I do recognise however that most of the non-geek audience won't have thought of this, and may be bitten, but them's the breaks IMO. The expectation of anonymity is no excuse for acting like an idiot. That said my hormones had already raged. Though Dr Aleks Krotoski does say that in the future, people who do not have a complete record, warts and all, will not be taken seriously, because they are not fully three dimensional people.
Re:Learning Without a Negative Response? (Score:2, Interesting)
The feedback and learning I got from those incidences, is to avoid those career paths entirely.
Even the most fucked up details of my personal life getting outed wouldn't destabilize my job. I'd be slightly embarrassed, but it wouldn't otherwise affect me.
Re:Posting is forever (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't worry, the internet does forget, and it forgets some of the best stuff, too. Back when I was an avid gamer thare was a very funny parody of Blue's News called "Yello There". A fellow names "Kneel Harriot" (who I later found out was a woman named Janet) updated it daily, and as far as I know there's only one instance of his site in the Wayback Machine [archive.org] at archive.org; "Kneel" and I often cross-posted, me using his character in stories at my site, the now-defunct "Springfield Fragfest" (which last time I looked was now a porn site). The only one one of his pages not missing is the one from the day people surfed to Yello There and found the Fragfest, and surfed to the Fragfest only to find Yello There.
There are a lot of the old sites that are gone without a trace. Most of the Fragfest is gone. My other site (also now defunct), mcgrew.info, is completely gone as well, although I think I have it in a hard drive on a shelf somewhere.
Somebody must have confused the internet with rock 'n' roll, because the internet does indeed forget. It just remembers a long time sometimes.
Re:On the other hand.... (Score:5, Interesting)
It is not as if employers are unaware that people go to parties when they are in college, nor is it the case that employers are unaware of what happens at college parties...
But that's kinda my point. Initially people are going to get screwed by it, but eventually employers will realize that they don't have a single candidate that doesn't have something embarrassing about them online and they will have to learn to accept it. No candidate is completely clean, so they'll have to stop being so judgmental.
Re:On the other hand.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Traditional societies also forgot technology (Score:3, Interesting)
But because that won't ever change and with more people getting born, they will use their elbows more and more to be able create their own space on this globe.
So the opposite will happen and people will judge each other more harsh.
So we better make sure that there won't be instruments to enable that behaviour instead of trusting the judgement of mankind.
Re:Learning Without a Negative Response? (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously though, I say what I feel like saying, and if somebody has problems with it, I'll find somebody else to work for. If somebody refuses me a certification of some kind that I have otherwise earned because of some personal 'morality' they have, I'll sue the shit out of them. And if it doesn't work, I'll still be more satisfied for not having to live a lie in order to pander to any petty social dictators who aren't happy unless everybody conforms to their narrow-minded standards.
Re:not enough recording (Score:5, Interesting)
>How about people like me, who haven't one anything, let alone getting caught?
There is NOBODY like that, no - not even you. EVERYTHING that exists, everything anybody has EVER done is offensive to somebody somewhere. You HAVE done something that somebody out there believes is wrong. It may not be on the internet but it's there. It's simply mathematically impossible to have never done anything that wouldn't offend somebody.
If you'd spent your life in a cellar in the fetal position some people will say you are one lazy guy ! If you have a religion - thirty other religions would prefer to have nothing to do with you (at best), if you have no religion ALL the others will feel that way. If you drink - some people will be offended, if you do NOT drink - others will assume you're a self-righteous moralist and your promotion will be stumped as they'll assume you inable to take the CEO of your next big customer-corp to a stripjoint for the signing if that's what he's into (or for that matter, to figure OUT that this is what he is into).
If you're a virgin, some people will think you're betraying your godly duty to reproduce. If you aren't - some will think you're a whore. If you're married to one woman and treat her well - some will call you a traitor to manhood. If you abuse her, others will hate you (rightfully so).
If you're a racist - other races will hate you for it, if you're not - racists will hate you.
Nobody, can possibly, go through life without doing anything that won't offend the morality of SOMEBODY. So just get over that illusion. The best you can hope for is that none of the people who would be offended by your choices are ever in a position of authority over you - or that if they are, you can avoid them knowing about it.
Alternatively and this would be far better- we can try to lead the way toward the world the grandparent points out- to recognize this, and say: as long as somebody isn't breaking the law, what they choose to do on their own time has fuck-all to do with me - EVEN if I am a potential employer.
Re:Posting is forever (Score:2, Interesting)
For the most part, I agree, but I'll go further. I think the publicly accessible permanent records will force us to acknowledge that people have flaws and checkered histories. I'm looking forward to that general recognition. But as usual, it's the transition period that's rough. Until a majority of the populace has adapted to the new paradigm of record-keeping, we're going to have an increase in the attention the public pays to slung mud.