UK Campaign Wants 18-Year-Olds To Be Able To Delete Embarrassing Online Past 318
An anonymous reader writes: People should be allowed to delete embarrassing social media posts when they reach adulthood, UK internet rights campaigners are urging. The iRights coalition has set out five rights which young people should expect online, including being able to easily edit or delete content they have created, and to know who is holding or profiting from their information. Highlighting how campaigners believe adults should not have to bear the shame of past immaturity, iRights also wants children to be protected from illegal or distressing pages; to be digitally literate; and be able to make informed and conscious choices.
No (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Best Solution
How about restrict internet to 18 years or older.
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Best Solution
How about restrict internet to 18 years or older.
You mean perhaps we shouldn't let our children just wander the streets of the entire virtual world utterly unsupervised?
You speak heresy man!
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony is that these days if you let your little darlings wander physical streets unsupervised, they'll come and arrest you and take away your children leaving them traumatized because the police hauled Mommy and Daddy off to jail and the Social Services people told the kiddies that their parents were horrible abusive creatures who deserved never to be allowed to see them again.
For doing what everyone thought was natural 20 years or so ago.
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The irony is that these days if you let your little darlings wander physical streets unsupervised, they'll come and arrest you and take away your children leaving them traumatized because the police hauled Mommy and Daddy off to jail and the Social Services people told the kiddies that their parents were horrible abusive creatures who deserved never to be allowed to see them again.
For doing what everyone thought was natural 20 years or so ago.
It still is natural. It's just that most people are idiots who can't keep their nose out of your business.
Embarrassment (Score:2)
Re:Embarrassment (Score:5, Insightful)
Are employers looking at Facebook also mostly a social thing?
The problem isn't embarrasment, it's judgmental people with the power to affect your live.
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Are employers looking at Facebook also mostly a social thing?
Employers looking at Facebook is an anti-social thing
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Are employers looking at Facebook also mostly a social thing? The problem isn't embarrasment, it's judgmental people with the power to affect your live.
Yeah, we'll get right on that. I'm sure that decision makers with no judgment will become a thing. Much better if they go by what you copied into your resume than by what you actually did in public.
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Are employers looking at Facebook also mostly a social thing?
The problem isn't embarrasment, it's judgmental people with the power to affect your live.
Yeah, we'll get right on that. I'm sure that decision makers with no judgment will become a thing. Much better if they go by what you copied into your resume than by what you actually did in public.
And this is why we have privacy. That people have disconnected lives where they are one person at work and another with their friends, is fundamental to actually being able to be yourself, to be a fully rounded person. If we start being terrified that everything we do in public will be available to anyone to judge out-of-context or through their own prejudices, you effectively give up your freedom and we are forced to regress to the lowest common denominator for behaviour. What appears on the internet is no
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Unless what you did in public was done as an employee, it really shouldn't impact your professional life. Unless, of course, you care to count that cookie you snitched when you were 5 as a crime for the purposes of that little checkbox on your application. And do we really want to hire you when we see that you once got into a slap fight over who had cooties?
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This will end once the boomers die off. Everyone has an embarrassing past. The problem is the Boomers that like to pretend their past was clean since there is no evidence and are quick to judge others. Once you can look up the HR persons trips to Cancun or your Boss's "experimental" stage we will all be on an even playing field.
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You'll have to wait a little longer. Gen X grew up without the internet as well.
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The boomers have begun to retire... in droves.
Yeah, everyone has embarrassments in their past, but it's still no one's right to go combing through them. Most employers are smart enough to stick with criminal background checks at the most (because seriously, a conviction for embezzlement may be an embarrassment, but it's also something an accounting firm would want to know about before hiring someone...) I have never had an employer (or individual therein) demand to see my facebook page or try to friend me o
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Embarrassing : Being forced to work for an employer who checks your facebook page or cares that you donâ(TM)t have one .
It's going to be the norm in a few years instead of just an excuse for HR people caught wasting too much time on Facebook.
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I'm sorry but when your entire facebook feed consists of anti-Obama trolling, that isn't being judgmental. That's making a conscious decision you don't want horrid people like that working at your company.
I"m not sure I follow that reasoning. Plenty of businesses, especially small businesses don't like Obama because of his efforts to drive small business out of business.
Obama's approval rating is less than 50%, so the majority of people don't care for him. Do you really think it likely that we would refuse to hire 54% of the people in the country because they don't like Obama?
Good luck with that (Score:2)
"an effort to change social perspective seems to be the sane and more permanent thing to do ."
Tell us oh great social visionary, how do you plan on changing the social perspective of 7 billion people?
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The planet cannot support 7 billion humans
Sure it can. It just can't support them in the manner in which they are currently deployed. Many people are born every year in places that have no food and have no ability to grow food. Unfortunately, people in those areas aren't bothered by the issue and continue to have more children.
If the entire populations of India and China perished overnight it would be a net benefit to the planet.
That depends what you mean by net benefit. India and China on the whole produce more food than they need and send food and aid to Africa. If India and China were to be wiped out, the average amount of food per person in the
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The individual does not define embarrassment.
That's a bit neurotic. Who defines one's emotions if not the individual? I'm not embarrassed just because someone tells me to be.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a shame that you were modded up so fast...
It isn't a pretty future when you're 30 years old, being judged for the silly stuff you posted online at 15 years old...
Everyone has a chapter in their book they don't real out loud, including you. Stuff you did at 15, you wouldn't want the world to know about, yet you want future kids to lack that same protection...
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
"Everyone has a chapter in their book they don't real out loud, including you"
Not all of us mate. Sure , I did some dumb stuff but nothing I'd be particularly embarrassed about. If a teen thinks posting pictures of their genitals or a "hilarious" throwing up incident in a bar or whatever isn't going to have future consequences then they're probably so clueless and thick that they're not going to go far in life anyway.
Most teens are sensible, why should be protect the idiot minority from themselves?
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Regardless of how common it is,
Most teens are sensible, why should be protect the idiot minority from themselves?
Because they are children. Children are not adults, they are not fully responsible, and they make mistakes. That's how they learn, and we of course forgive them and mostly forget about it. We certainly don't bring up their bed wetting at age 4 all the time. It's just what kids do, and some of them don't have the best parents in the world to help them avoid those mistakes either.
Anyway, the alternative is that a lot of people change their legal name to get away from their past.
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If you're old enough to join the army or vote you're old enough to accept responsibility for your actions. End.
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Or you just don't hear about it because they don't tell you. Younger teens are neurologically incapable of making good decisions about future consequences. That part of the brain is literally not wired up yet.
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LOL! Spoken from a kiddy point of view or what :)
Believe it or not sonny, Facebook hasn't been around that long. Zuckerberg wasn't even born when I was 15 so the odds on there being anything online about me when I was a kid are pretty slim wouldn't you say?
And no, I didn't do anything embarrasing unless you think getting into fights, trying it on with girls and driving cars fast is embarrassing. But then you're obviously a millennial so who knows.
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Just the sort of thing a potential employer would throw your resume out for. Didn't you hear about the teacher that was sacked over a "drunken pirate" photo?
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LOL! Spoken from a kiddy point of view or what :)
LOL? Oy...
And no, I didn't do anything embarrasing unless you think getting into fights, trying it on with girls and driving cars fast is embarrassing. But then you're obviously a millennial so who knows.
I read that as violent tendencies plus assault, possible attempted rape, and a reckless disregard for the law in general.
Report to the nearest incarceration facility.
But all joking aside, when these folk are your age, they'll probably say the same thing about showing their junk on teh netz. Just being on the internet at all exposes a whole lot about a person, you and I included. Kid's who get in fights in school aren't just given suspensions, they are some times arrested, and the police are a
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Great. IP will NEVER enter the public domain.
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
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Celebrities have had the same problem for ages and they learned to get along with it, too. If you don't want to embarrass yourself, don't put embarrassing photos of yourself on the Internet. Even an 8 year old can understand that.
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It helps when your bank account holds enough to retire comfortably on right now. As for 8 year olds, no. They can parrot it back for you and sort of understand it, but until their frontal lobe takes over fully for their amygdala, they will make plenty of mistakes in that area.
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Life does not have a reset button.
But Social Media could. Why shouldn't we let it have a reset button just because life doesn't?
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You support laws like Megan's law, which punishes sex offenders long after they have paid their debt to society (served their time). What's good for them is good for you. Get over it.
Actually, I don't. I espectally don't support putting people who pissed on dumpsters in the middle of the night on those lists.
It's people with your attitude who support those laws.
Life used to have a total reset button. Move 100 miles and you become who you say you are. You had to start over with trust in your community, but if you learned from your previous mistake, you could come to be seen as an upstanding member of the community.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
A young woman was elected as an MP in Scotland, regardless of the "colourful" Tweets she'd written since she was 14: http://www.express.co.uk/news/... [express.co.uk]
Wikipedia says "as most of them were a few years old they were generally ascribed to immaturity and did not appear to do any significant damage": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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This. By far most embarrassing things you've said or done are laid dead when you own up to it and say I was young and foolish, okay? Most of the problem actually comes from shielded youngsters who are still too mentally immature to blush, cope and move on. Of course there are situations you might be caught in that would be genuinely embarrassing, like revenge porn but then you're typically dealing with malice and an army of Internet trolls who won't let it go away anyway. In short, either you ought to grow
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True, but personally, I propose that the age be raised to 30 before deletion... let the kids get a taste of those consequences, then have said consequences hang around long enough to learn from it. Only then should they get a do-over.
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And only when they have shown proper penance.
And nudes from 18+ years on never get deleted.
And... (Score:2, Insightful)
And I want a toilet seat made out of gold, but it's just not on the cards now is it?
Here's a thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids & Teens: Don't post embarrassing photos or videos of yourself online, or put yourself in a position where others can post embarrassing photos or videos of you online. Don't think you can be anonymous online, because someone WILL recognize you or figure out who you are, given enough incentive. Consider it a valuable life lesson that you actually *can't* retract everything you do in life so easily.
Parent: Get involved and teach your children to be responsible online. Just like in the real world, there are rules for behaving safely and responsibly online. When things go public, there's no way to retrieve those images from everyone who may have gotten a copy, and no amount of legislation is going to change that reality, however much some people may wish it.
Legislators: Stop pretending that you can fix all the world's ills with the sweep of a pen. Start learning what IS and ISN'T possible in the online world. Or for God's sake, at least ask one of your younger tech-savvy interns before you make a fool of yourself with this sort of stuff.
Re:Here's a thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
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When I was a teen in the late 90's and early 2000's I was a member on a number of forums and I had a pretty thorough presence on the 'social media' sites of the time. Yet I don't think I ever wrote something of significant embarrassing consequence to me now. I don't think it was because I was particularly mature (I wasn't, actually it was the opposite) but instead I think the nature of social media changed. Back then you would mostly be talking with a small group of like-minded friends. Anything dumb that y
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Don't [...] put yourself in a position where others can post embarrassing photos or videos of you online
Seriously... were you ever a kid or a teen yourself, or were you born a boring old grampa?
Doing embarrassing things is what kids do; it's how they learn what not to do.
The problem is hypocritical people who like to pretend they never did anything embarrassing when they were kids.
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Well, good advice, to be sure, but really, just grow up, everybody. When you are teenager, you do embarrassing things - that is what the teens are for. When we grow up, one of the things need to learn is to forgive ourselves and learn to live with having left a trail of evidence. With the right kind of attitude, it can be a great source of experience and humour; it really isn't a big deal - and it ought to be asset.
The problem isn't that we are stupid when we are teenagers - at that age, you need to experim
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or put yourself in a position where others can post embarrassing photos or videos of you online
So basically don't ever be a teenager. ... ever.
Mind you we were locked in our parent's basements most of our lives and we turned out alright right?
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Also, control all your friends so that they don't post any information online about you. Control Google and whoever's facial recognition algorthms from auto tagging you. Control all the stuff you have no possible control over, because I don't want to consider that possibly this new technology we've invented might have really bad consequences and I can't be bothered to do anything about it.
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someone WILL recognize you or figure out who you are, given enough incentive.
Worse: face recognition software is getting better all the time, and it's only a matter of time before search engines and social media start tagging images. Once something or someone puts your name to your likeness online, all (or at least a good many) images with you in it can be found by typing your name into Google.
What legislators can do is to make it very clear that private life stuff should stay out of the workplace, and not affect job applications or performance reviews. Put it on the same level
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Kids & Teens: Don't.
be human?
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When you're a kid/teen you don't know what may be an embarrassing photo or video. That's what being a kid/teen is about. The video you put online, discussing international politics with your impeccable 12 year-old wisdom, may have been the proudest day of your life. ... 10 years later and it's a cringe-fest that makes you appear to be an idiot who's a little bit racist.
You get older, you learn something of life, you realise that aged 12 you knew nothing, and you'd rather no-one was watching that video. I
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Legislators: Stop pretending that you can fix all the world's ills with the sweep of a pen. Start learning what IS and ISN'T possible in the online world.
But it IS possible to delete posts off of Social Media, the sites just don't allow it.
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You're asking kids to behave as adults. You might as well mock a baby for pissing itself for all the good it will do.
Remember, there was a time long ago when you saw nothing at all embarrassing about sitting in your own filth.
Re:Here's a thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to be clear, I do have some sympathy for people who are out in public, and are caught in an embarrassing situation not of their own making. Say, for example, a dog playing at the beach tugs at person's swimsuit and pulls it down. Pretty embarrassing, and not exactly anyone's fault. Someone films it with their smartphone and posts it online anonymously for kicks. Your situation is another good example.
This sort of thing can happen much more easily, because nowadays *everyone* has a handy videocamera available right in their smartphone. I'm perfectly fine with laws meant to protect people against that sort of abuse, or to compel services to remove photos or videos of that nature upon request. That being said, everyone has to understand that there's no way to permanently remove data from "the internet", only from a few specific sites. And anyone who downloaded that information could always upload it again. That's the hard reality of the world we live in. The information age provides some amazing benefits, but it certainly has downsides as well.
Part of this is a human problem as well. Who exactly posted these rumors on FB about you? Is passing a law about this going to fix the underlying problem here? That's sort of what I'm getting at. I'm saying that people need to understand that this is the new reality. Part of this needs to be some restraint in people NOT posting unfounded rumors about others online at the drop of a hat. I wouldn't shed a tear if the person who spread those rumors about you got reprimanded or fired because of pulling bullshit like that. Responsibility has to go both ways.
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That being said, everyone has to understand that there's no way to permanently remove data from "the internet", only from a few specific sites.
Indeed, which is why the EU requiring major search engines to remove results for people's names is quite sensible. The information is still there, but a casual search won't find it. In the same way as in the past old news articles were available on microfiche, and old photos were in people's personal collections, but you had to make a lot of effort to find them.
And anyone who downloaded that information could always upload it again.
To an extent, but existing copyright laws already prevent people from re-posting material they don't own and don't have permission to use. Actually
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Did you confront the responsible party? No? Then don't ask everyone else to fix your problem, which is with that person, not with us or the Internet.
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Only 15 year olds who live at home think that people can "sue their employer" and continue to get jobs going into the future.
Even more so for something like "someone at work saw a picture of me, and they therefore took negative action, but the picture wasn't what it looked like, your Honor! ".
Your stupid post against permitting 15 year olds protection against their embarrassing youthful mistakes
might expose you as a person with poor judgement for the rest of your lifem, except I see you're using a
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That's why I included parents in that topic (and teachers can also be helpful here). They're supposed to provide some wisdom and guidance about these sorts of things. Just have a conversation with your kids about being careful about what you post online, because those sorts of things can't *really* ever be deleted, and can have real-life consequences.
You need to start from that reality, and not with wishful thinking about being able to magically erase your past. It would be great if it were possible, but
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If you believe that you can " Just have a conversation with your kids...", and them actually doing as you told them, then you've never raised a child. Children, especially teenagers, are irrational, and typically rebellious.
the agenda (Score:3, Insightful)
iRights also wants children to be protected from illegal or distressing pages
This is the part that is the real reason. They will try to impose a government mandated filter on the Internet. Again. Give up Your rights, we are doing it for Your protection. Think about the Children! (TM)
Also, shouldn't Apple be really cross about the name?
Wrong age (Score:5, Insightful)
Relatively little of what teens do is going to cause them problems in later life. It's what people do between about 18 and 25 that tends to screw them. Mainly because they're old enough to drink (without having to hide it) but not yet old enough to think (well).
Re:Wrong age (Score:5, Insightful)
But knowing to not shoot selfies of yourself being a total jackass is something that can make some sense a lot earlier than 18. If some 15 year old can know enough not to drop his pants in front of his grandmother or in front of his classroom at school, he already has what it takes to know not to do it online. He just has to be taught that. Which involves, you know, parents. Who give a damn about their kids' future.
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But knowing to not shoot selfies of yourself being a total jackass is something that can make some sense a lot earlier than 18. If some 15 year old can know enough not to drop his pants in front of his grandmother or in front of his classroom at school, he already has what it takes to know not to do it online.
Mod this up. (I've already posted in the thread, so I can't.)
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If some 15 year old can know enough not to drop his pants in front of his grandmother or in front of his classroom at school,
Why should anyone take this seriously? what needs more attention is bullying which makes kids violent ..
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Speak for yourself. Anyone pushed enough fights back. When those that prefer peace (not bullies) finally lash out it is with with much greater ferocity and lack of control.
Yes, but when you fight back against a bully, you are punished by the system as an example to others. When a bully constantly picks on you, the system looks the other way, sometimes actually chanting "zero tolerance policy" while they look the other way.
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And then THEY get punished while the bully plays poor me. These days, that punishment may include arrest and court appearances. That information will be 'out there' and will not likely mention the sore provocation over many months that lead to it.
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You can't take the pee out of the pool (Score:5, Interesting)
Giving proper citation, my favorite quote on the topic, from News Radio:
Joe: You can’t take something off the Internet. It’s like taking pee out of a swimming pool.
Which seems surprising appropriate for kids doing stupid things...
We keep history to learn (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm 19, and I have to say this is incredibly moronic. Granted, I've posted tons of embarrassing stuff when I was younger, but that's part of growing up. I learned not do that again and moved on. Just because you said something stupid once doesn't mean people get to remove archived internet events for you. I'm so sick of my worthless pussy generation, always being "triggered" or having their feelings hurt because they're not the center of attention. I mean holy fuck, most of us are in our late teens and early 20s. Grow the fuck up.
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I'm 19, and I have to say this is incredibly moronic. Granted, I've posted tons of embarrassing stuff when I was younger, but that's part of growing up. I learned not do that again and moved on. Just because you said something stupid once doesn't mean people get to remove archived internet events for you. I'm so sick of my worthless pussy generation, always being "triggered" or having their feelings hurt because they're not the center of attention. I mean holy fuck, most of us are in our late teens and early 20s. Grow the fuck up. .
Agreed. Just goes to show wisdom isn't soley the result of age (it sure isn't an automatic result)
I'm a lot older. I did and thought a lot of things things in the past that I'm not proud of. Wiping out the evidence doesn't change the fact they happened. Embarrassment is awareness of that. I learned from the embarrassment - that I am privately proud of
If people want to judge me by past history - that's their right (if they're over 30 they deserve the opinions they hold), it doesn't mean it's right, or it's a
Another group that does not get it at all... (Score:2)
They think making laws and demanding things changes reality. It does not. It can lead to people presenting themselves as complete idiots to the world though.
Senior Citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
The same rules should apply to old people. I'm getting cranky and I just don't give a fuck sometimes...
Yay for the march of technology... (Score:3)
For those of us who went through our teenage years before the internet, the records were mostly out of reach - parents pulling out embarrassing baby/child photos to show a girlfriend/boyfriend, childhood friends with unfortunately good memories recounting stories about embarrassing behaviour, tattoos that we regretted but could generally cover up, and for the more adventurous of us the juvenile criminal records that resulted from pranks or misbehaviour are the kinds of things we deal with.
The current generation are going through all of that while also having an almost uncontrollable urge to post every iota of their lives online. Somebody with the ability to step back and think "will I regret this tomorrow/next week/next year/at a job interview" would probably not do a lot of the things that end up being posted, but today's teenagers are no better at consequence analysis than we were when we were that age. The difference is that today the records are more permanent and more visible.
Personally, I do not believe that people should be able to airbrush their past to this degree, even though as adults we all do it up to a point - after all, rewriting a resumé so it is still basically true but puts you in a better light is a common tactic before applying for jobs, and keeping some of your more embarrassing secrets is natural - we all want people to see the good parts, and we want to hide the bad parts. That will be harder for teenagers in the digital world. But rather than allowing children to erase the past and thus escape the consequences of their actions, I would prefer to educate them about those consequences and how long they can go on for. It means they have to grow up a bit more quickly in some ways, but better that than to teach them that you can do bad or embarrassing shit and then rewrite history after the fact.
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But rather than allowing children to erase the past and thus escape the consequences of their actions, I would prefer to educate them about those consequences and how long they can go on for.
No. This is the same line of thinking that leads to people who commit often victimless crimes being unable to vote or get decent jobs ever again, every sentence becomes a life sentence.
What we're looking at here is the dark underbelly of ubiquitous connectivity and creative media access. For high minded folks it's a good thing, it lets them get their message out and expose problems, or share their work without having to doff their caps to gatekeepers. For the vast majority of humanity however it's a potenti
Who will think of the children? (Score:2)
It's all about the kids, right?
Oh wait - I think I took a cynicism tablet instead of the happy pill this morning. Bloody Abbott [wikipedia.org] has been messing with the public health system again. He used to be funny until he pushed Costello [wikipedia.org] out of the limelight.
Hope not. (Score:2)
I'm against it.
Dumb little shits will be dumb little shits all their life, even if the evidence of their earlier misdeeds is erased.
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Dumb little shits will be dumb little shits all their life
Thanks for proving that.
The three 5-star posts so far are sad (Score:2)
I find the three 5 star posts in this thread (so far) sad.
The points come across as sanctimonious and the tone is scolding. Scolding to the kids for doing something the authors deem stupid; sanctimonious towards parents who apparently don't care about these stupid kids, or they would have raised them differently and therefore produced different outcomes.
I know the tech sections of the internet skew heavily towards very young, white males, and this may account for the high rating of these posts, but they all
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If only I had mod points right now ....
Making mistakes is part of the human development process. Punishing every action for now and evermore may lead to well disciplined drones but won't help society as a whole. Do we want 100% conformity to some sort of norm with nobody pushing boundaries -- or one where the stretching of possibilities opens up whole new opportunities?
If every activity is going to be monitored, recorded and analysed for ever more [as the current trends in online operations are going] and
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If we had a post of the month award, I'd be voting for this one.
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Mod this up!
If I had to name the modern trends that need to go away it would be the cultivation of fear and the taste for eternal punishment for all.
18 years??? (Score:2)
Meanwhile... (Score:2)
This UK citizen would rather under-18's didn't do shit and/or post about it online such that might later affect their lives.
Take some fucking responsibility for yourself from about the age of 10/11, as the law states, and if you cock up, learn to live with the consequences.
Sure, we'd all like a time machine that could erase certain mistakes but why the hell should we legislate some cyber-time-machine that actually removes indiscretions posted publicly?
Not only that, it just won't work. You can't just erase
How about 37 year-olds ? (Score:2)
... we really want be able to delete every stupid thing that happened before we were 30. Especially those political posts.
Problem will go away soon (Score:2)
It is only in the interregnum it is an issue.
Know what you're doing (Score:2)
Only post what you're okay with people seeing and if you're posting something you don't want seen... then work under false names.
My social networking nonsense is compartmentalized. My names never link back to a person unless I want them to... and then I make a point of not doing anything on line with those identities that will attract controversy.
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Oh look, an AC troll/sockpuppet making a shitty post about someone that actually logs in... and what is this? He's criticizing someone else's record? Does he know that that is unbe-fucking-lievably hypocritical given that he's giving no one else an ability to examine his own record?
Surely he must know that... right?
Well, it's probably not important since we can likely assume that all he does is shit post about other people or do various trollish sockpuppity things on the forums.
What's so fucking funny about
Code of Conducts. (Score:2)
Now do you see why Randi Harper and her "Code of Conducts" aren't conducive to actually helping anyone? I'm in my 30s, contributing member of society. I have a job, a kid, a wife. But god save me if shit I said when I was 14 on IRC was published. I was 14. I couldn't imagine where I'd be if my life was ruined by dogpiling for some stupid tweet I made.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04... [nytimes.com]
http://www.npr.org/2015/03/31/... [npr.org]
http://www.npr.org/2015/04/01/... [npr.org]
Thankfully I found Slashdot instead of 4Chan (or what ever t
Good Luck with that (Score:2)
Seriously?
And then what, magically lose that ability at age 18 like the rest of the plods online?
Actions. Have. Consequences.
A two year old can learn that easily, if the consequences are proximate to the cause.
How about making every post made by a 'child' immediately and publicly available? At least there would be
a clear result from postings, instead of the illusion of privacy that seems to promote irresponsible
What we have vs. what we want (Score:5, Interesting)
A conversation about the internet that is long, long overdue: Is what we *have* what we *want*, and if not, what can be done about it?
What we HAVE is a global network that will never, ever let you forget that silly thing you did whilst young and drunk that everyone thought was so hilarious at the time.
Is that really what we want?
Something as simple as dropping obscure older material down the search rankings would have a whole bunch of potentially nice effects. It would make the embarassments of your past harder to find. It would make shitty documentation for older programming languages to finally get superceded by the more modern stuff (if you've never encountered some novice following "best practice" from a document that was written when CGI ruled the web, I envy you). It would leave the content as available as ever, but drop the older and largely less-relevant stuff out of circulation.
The instant flood of responses being trotted out here along the lines of "Teh internet nevar forgets! n00b! l0l!!" are a sad reflection of how little thought people want to give a genuinely interesting question: Is the internet that's evolved over the past few decades really as good as it can be? And I'll be honest, if you really can't think of a single thing that could be done to improve it, I submit you're too ignorant to have an opinion on the subject.
So if we assume that some changes *could* make it better.. what's your proposal for deciding what those changes are, and how they should be made? Right now, the only mechanism going seems to be not-very-well-informed politicians proposing laws and waiting for them to be either passed or laughed down.
If you've got some ingenious way of working out how to make things better, start talking about it. Otherwise, maybe just sit down and shut up whilst other people try.
In Theory (Score:2)
In theory it is a good thing that everything you do online stays online forever. Including all the stupid posts, butt photos, kisses, etc. This, as some think also on /., will help you to "grow up faster", implying that learning how to behave in public has something to do with growing up (yes it is a small, but not insignificant part). As we all do and did a lot of stupid things in our life the remaining content will just illustrate the process of becoming an adult. And we all know that and therefore we do
What happens on X... (Score:2)
'What happens on the internet, stays on the internet' is the practical reality. There will need to be some kind of enforceable government certification of social medias which will do such deletion, and a means to prevent other sites getting hold of content. Can't see that happening anytime soon.
So, do stupid shit until 18? (Score:2)
And then, it's all cleared up? Fun.
yet another "right" (Score:2)
This sort of thing is a natural progression of labeling every little benefit or service or obligation or arrangement a "right". No.
A "right" is something that others' actions may not infringe - something that if they do, you can defend yourself and/or the state will defend you from. It is actionable.
Contrasted to that, a "right to water" or "right to health" or "right to happiness" or "right to have data edited/erased" is a putative obligation upon others to do something for you. That's not a "right".
Re: (Score:2)
Extend this.... (Score:2)
That'd really be a downer for "open mike" at weddings, where opportunities to embarrass the bride and groom abound.
Re: (Score:2)
Yay. The right to be as big an ass as you want before you turn 18, because there's no repercussion.
Yes, just like people did before the internet. Oh, wait, no, they didn't.
Re: (Score:2)
How about everyone getting the right to retract anything embarrassing every birthday?
This is what I came here to say. Social Media sites should just allow you to retract posts at any time for any or no reason. I am not sure why so many people are so violently against something which could not possibly harm them in any way. The only thing i can think is that they are all jackbooted nazi thugs that think they have the right to know every private deal of everybody else's lives.