UK Campaign Wants 18-Year-Olds To Be Able To Delete Embarrassing Online Past

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.

Comments

No

[musmax]

Email and posts are forever. The faster you grow up on the internets the faster you'll grow up. Actions have consequences and it is by suffering from those that we become more human and less of that thing a 18 year old is. It will be a massive disservice to both the individual and society if we don't have that.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Best Solution

How about restrict internet to 18 years or older.

Re:No

[davester666]

Great. IP will NEVER enter the public domain.

Re:No

[FlyHelicopters]

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

[aaaaaaargh!]

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.

Re:No

[Viol8]

"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?

Re:No

[cascadingstylesheet]

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

[RabidReindeer]

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.

Re:No

[AmiMoJo]

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. Even then, psychologically it's still difficult to handle.

Re:No

[xaxa]

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/...

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/...

Re:No

[invid]

Very shortly, the general views that many people hold about privacy, such as 'I don't want the world to see my sex video' or 'Those pictures of me passed out on the toilet are mortifying' or 'I didn't mean to ramble on about your privates on Twitter' will seem Victorian by comparison to what people will simply accept as part of being human. Instead of going through the draconian methods that would be required to maintain privacy, society will simple learn to accept a world without it.

Re:No

[wues]

This is indeed by Lem. No idea about English translation, but in Polish it was published as short story "Profesor DoÅda" in the volume "Maska" ("The Mask") in 1976. The idea was that energy, matter and information are all equivalent and if you reach critical amount of information it will turn to matter, forming a new Universe separate from ours. The story is grotesque and really funny.

Re:No

[Kjella]

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 a thicker skin or you have to grow a thicker skin.

And...

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

[Dutch Gun]

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...

[ruir]

For the legislators it is easy, it is not their money, and they can put google and the ISPs working "for free" at their beckoning. At the end of the day it is us, the end users and consumers, footing the bill as always.

Re:Here's a thought...

[Dutch Gun]

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.

Re:Here's a thought...

[Beck_Neard]

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 you wrote would never have been known by a large number of people. Nowadays twitter and facebook and youtube make it possible for 14 year olds to have thousands of followers. A premature brain should not have that kind of exposure. Of course bad stuff is going to happen.

I don't know how to change this. Maybe restrict the access of teenagers to mass social media, or put educational programs in schools that inform kids of the dangers.

Re:Here's a thought...

[Zontar The Mindless]

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.

Re:Here's a thought...

[jandersen]

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 experiment in order to find out about things, and you have a right to make errors and be forgiven. The real problem is when these things are blown out of all proportion, by employers, political enemies or by the shallow end of the press - I mean, look back at the continuous smear campaigns against one president after another. Does it really matter that Dubya once yelled 'Fuck you' after his mother? Does it matter that Clinton once smoked a joint and maybe even enjoyed it? Of course not - what matters is what they do when they are in office.

the agenda

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[swillden]

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

[ScentCone]

This. Nobody is an adult at 18. Not even close. Most people don't have their cognitive act together, and any sort of capacity for rational behavior (if they're ever going to get there) until, these days, they're the better part of 30.

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.

You can't take the pee out of the pool

[Dahamma]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Embarrassment

[mwvdlee]

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.

Re:Embarrassment

[invictusvoyd]

Are employers looking at Facebook also mostly a social thing?

Employers looking at Facebook is an anti-social thing

Senior Citizens

[Sooner Boomer]

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...

[Stolpskott]

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.

Re:The three 5-star posts so far are sad

[andrewbaldwin]

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 any misdemeanour at any age punished forever (through job blocking or society's opprobrium and ostracising) then we'll lose out on our future Mozarts, Brunels...etc.

Just to expose the hypocrisy of some of the loudest voices around, consider the recent fuss about the queen's home movies showing a nazi* salute at an early age.

Establishment leaning media [who are pushing for all sorts of censorship] are falling all over themselves with (a) excuses [she was only a child, didn't realise ...] and (b) outrage [how dare this be dragged up to embarrass her....].

Yet these very same sources hold nothing back when digging up the dirt and tearing into others.

This would be bad enough - yet it is the very same people who are pushing for these changes.

Similarly, it seems OK for employers to view activities at a young, impressionable age when we all do stupid things as set in concrete for life - yet we're asked to apply different standards for the rich and powerful (eg bankers) or those with guaranteed job security and a well paid (taxpayer funded) lifestyle.

*can I claim a vicarious Godwin ? :-)

Re:Hope not.

[dcw3]

Dumb little shits will be dumb little shits all their life

Thanks for proving that.

What we have vs. what we want

[oneandoneis2]

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.

Re:Embarrassment

[traces8]

Considering these posts are an example of your decision making abilities, judgment and character I'd say it's useful information for employers. A good predictor of future behaviors is past behaviors. Posts about skipping work, stealing from previous employers, and other past employment is useful info for potential employers. So are posts about willingness to take on extra responsibility, actions that have resulted in positive outcomes for employers and examples of good decision making skills.