Sharing our lives on social media is very normal these days. Posting your pictures, videos, and personal information has become standard to the point that younger generations are so used to it, they don’t see the lack of privacy as an issue. Self-promotion is ruling social media with everyone wanting to look better, say something smarter, and do something more impressive than anyone else. It’s a competition in which public sharing is the only way to win.
The thing is that whenever something gets on the internet, it’s there forever. Or, at least, it’s very difficult to get it erased. It’s obvious, you say, but the people that tweeted all these mad things didn’t consider it. So, maybe it’s good to remind yourself that one has to be careful about what they put online as everything settles into our digital footprint.
A digital footprint is a collection of data of your online activity. It consists not only of the information you willingly share on social media (active digital footprint) but also the websites you visit, online purchases, etc. (passive digital footprint). Basically, it’s a trail of everything you do whilst on the internet. And one can do a lot with such information.
In a paper published in 2019, researchers found that a digital footprint alone is enough to determine your personality type. They used prior research data to find information extracted from social media profiles and tried to identify a person’s possible Big Five personality traits. According to them, they could predict a person’s character with “remarkable accuracy.” And while this seems innocent, it means that we’re basically an open book to anyone willing to look us up online.
Studies have shown that your big five personality score can predict many real-world outcomes. Health, wealth, as well as occupational and relationship success can be determined just by looking at the results of the test. They can even judge how likely a person is to have an affair or steal from their employer. In fact, many employers use the big five personality test to determine how successful their candidates would be at their jobs. Soon enough, taking a test will not even be necessary as social media will do all the talking for us.
Since many are worried about their digital footprint, the talk about the right to be forgotten has been getting louder and louder. In essence, it’s your right to ask for a website to remove any content you don’t like about yourself from their servers. This is especially relevant for former convicts but also for anyone else who has posted something without thinking it might affect their careers or relationships. The people responsible for the tweets on this list should probably think about this, too.
However, the right to be forgotten is only valid in some countries. For example, it appears in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, under Article 17. However, in the US, such laws would infringe on the rights of freedom of expression and free speech. The distinction in the regulation is apparent in the case of two half-brothers that sued Wikipedia for publishing their names in an article about a German actor they were convicted of murdering. The German Wikipedia agreed to “forget” the names and removed them from the German version. The article in English, however, still contains the names as criminal histories of individuals are protected by the First Amendment.
The First Amendment protects speech no matter if it’s “shared in a public square or on the internet.” In his viral TED Talk, Twitter owner and self-described free speech absolutist, Elon Musk said that the platform has become “a de facto town square” and should welcome everybody’s opinions. But what happens if a person wants their opinion back? What if they change their mind and don’t want to be seen as someone who voices controversial stories online? In a town square, your words are eventually drowned out and forgotten, but that doesn’t happen on Twitter.
Cultural sensitivities change through the years, too. Things that used to be quite risqué but not too unacceptable to say or do just a few years back can now get someone cancelled. Sometimes, rightfully so. But where does one draw the line? Should someone still be reprimanded for something they have done in the past if they have already atoned for it? And if we do forgive, should we really forget about it? Or should the stain of doing or saying hateful things or even committing a crime always be a part of our lives?
One day, the people that posted these tweets will look back at them and think they should have kept their mouths shut. They might even want to take it all back. This day might even be today. But as long as the First Amendment protects the right to internet immortality, we’re safe to enjoy the cringy silliness of someone’s worst opinion ever.
