Remember
life before the Internet and things like Facebook, when you could do daring or dumb things and they wouldn’t follow you for life?
We know how it’s increasingly harder to do something without being
tracked, recorded, and put into a search engine – to be recalled by anyone at
any time. We are in a new era of
transparency, for better or worse, that will change how we date, consumer
services or products, hire, and make choices about everything. But what if this era of transparency is
selectively altered, where some people can edit the public record and thus,
recreate our understanding of the events that have taken place? Imagine if we are allowed to forget the
actions of the past. Our online resume
of what we say and do may seem burdening, but it exists for everyone to see or
be seen by. Once we start to alter
information, we will have altered the balance of fairness.
In
Europe, people can now request, under a new law, that some material posted
online can be taken down. It’s debatable
as to what can be taken down and it varies country by country. Unless a compelling public interest exists to
retain such information, requests are to be honored by Google and search
engines.
The
Internet, already a forum for lies, unsubstantiated claims, poorly gathered
facts, misinterpreted data, hoaxes, hackers, identity thieves, propaganda,
child pornographers, and criminal activities, now it'll be an unreliable source
for formulating complete and accurate accounts of the world it desperately
wants to capture. An edited or sanitized
Internet is not a good thing. You can’t
undo the truth.
If you
are a rape victim and want links taken down that talk about the crime, one may
have sympathy, though the bigger crime is to remove facts from a fact-gathering
source. Who gets to decide what should
be “on record”? The government? Amateur volunteers? A corporation with vested interests?
Imagine
if people tried to erase what was in a newspaper or to cut out what was in the Congressional Record. Just because the world is digitized and the
ability to edit things exists doesn’t mean we should do it. Eventually the Internet will recreate what we
know of the world and it’ll be a false, incomplete history.
Should
more judgment be used by people, media, governments, etc. about what they post
or publically disclose in the first place?
Absolutely. But once it’s out
there, it’s out there. You shouldn’t be
allowed to unsay something especially if it’s true.
However,
the public, businesses, schools, and society must evolve in how it digests the
information that’s out there. We shouldn’t
accept rumor as truth or hold an accusation against someone without due
process. We have to change our standards
on what’s acceptable the more we learn how commonplace certain behaviors really
are. We can’t be so harsh to judge or
lack forgiveness, for the more that is shared and exposed about us, the more we
learn – and redefine – what it means to be human. There’s more cheating, lying, sexual
activity, racism, abuse, addiction and criminal behavior than we realize. So once it’s uncovered, we may not be able to
judge it so harshly.
Should
Nazis be allowed to have a website that says screw the Jews and kill black
people? Should a woman be able to post
nude selfies online? Should you be
allowed to say the US president sucks?
Can you advocate for a revolution?
Absolutely. And the public should
demand the right to have an Internet free of editing by its participants, free
of government censorship, and free of lies or inaccuracies.
The Internet
is moving us towards being a transparent society. We need to get used to that. But we can’t move towards it while also
allowing, on a select and secretive basis, the ability of some to change the public record. The right to remember
should trump the right to forget. We all
have a right to the truth – and a responsibility to treat others fairly based
on it.
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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this
blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s
largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him
at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the
third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014
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