[devdad]

So many commenters are missing the point or actively trying to misread the article. The point is that when you're young you're going to do things that seem correct and thought through at the time, but might not be when you've aged. For those of us that were able to make these mistakes before social media, we got the time to reflect and correct / adapt out behavior. We now strip the young of this moment of reflection when the web can explode over night over non-issues, effectively creating a situation where a simple Google on a twenty year old might bring up a wall of discussion about the bad behavior. I'm in my mid thirties and am not as angry with social issues as I were in my teens. The things I did and the things that shaped me were discussed and corrected by a small group of people, not an angry mob on the internet that didn't really know me. I'm grateful for that.

[RubenSandwich]

Agreed.

We need to find a balance of forgetting things online:

"I don't know if they did this in Germany, but in our elementary schools in America, if we did something particularly heinous, they had a special way of threatening you. They would say: "This is going on your permanent record".

It was pretty scary. I had never seen a permanent record, but I knew exactly what it must look like. It was bright red, thick, tied with twine. Full of official stamps.

The permanent record would follow you through life, and whenever you changed schools, or looked for a job or moved to a new house, people would see the shameful things you had done in fifth grade.

How wonderful it felt when I first realized the permanent record didn't exist. They were bluffing! Nothing I did was going to matter! We were free!

And then when I grew up, I helped build it for real."[0]

[0] http://idlewords.com/talks/internet_with_a_human_face.htm

Edit: Removed code quotes for quote.

[davemp]

Please don’t quote with code snippets, it’s unreadable on mobile.

[theoh]

Here is the above text:

I don't know if they did this in Germany, but in our elementary schools in America, if we did something particularly heinous, they had a special way of threatening you. They would say: "This is going on your permanent record".

It was pretty scary. I had never seen a permanent record, but I knew exactly what it must look like. It was bright red, thick, tied with twine. Full of official stamps.

The permanent record would follow you through life, and whenever you changed schools, or looked for a job or moved to a new house, people would see the shameful things you had done in fifth grade.

How wonderful it felt when I first realized the permanent record didn't exist. They were bluffing! Nothing I did was going to matter! We were free!

And then when I grew up, I helped build it for real.[0]

[RubenSandwich]

Sorry about that, it's fixed now.

[hutzlibu]

Your last sentence was funny, but I disagree with:

"We need to find a balance of forgetting things online"

I rather think we need to find a balance of dealing with each other's misstakes and abandon Facebooks etc. styled and polished world of perfectness.

We are not perfect. We made misstakes. Lot's of them.

But in most cases that's OK, if we learned from it.

[RubenSandwich]

I think it actually has to be erased, otherwise, some future employer, acquaintance etc, might judge you for something you've moved on from. People do learn and move on from their mistakes, but not when they are continually berated for them because that causes them to be self-defensive and it's my experience that as soon as the defenses go up the ability for self-reflection is lost.

What I mean by balance is that political scandals should definitely not be forgotten, but thoughtless things written by a minor should. I just don't know where the line should be and personally, I think it varies widely by the circumstances.

There is a movement across the globe currently to try to make the internet forget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten.

[hutzlibu]

I know there is this movement.

But I believe in truth. And despise hypocrisy ...

But I believe hypocrisy is a follow up, when you set the standard, that there might be no dark past.

So the person from human HR interviewing you than, can look down at you, because your incident made it into local news - but he got lucky and his incident gots forgotten and ereased. And he believes now in his righteous act, even though he did the same things (drugs, racism, whatever).

I rather believe there should be a right to move one. Yeah you did those things, but you learned from it. (or still stand by them) This I would like much more, than pretending everything is and was shiny, which it often was not. But you can't really solve the problems if you can't even talk about them.

[baddox]

Heck, even the threat that your grades from middle school would effect your ability to get into certain classes in high school turned out to be nonsense.

[PeterStuer]

Hear hear! Even here on HN, e.g. discussions that come within a 200 mile radius of identity politics can immediately expect to be mobbed. I'm still trying to figure out whether these misrepresentations are deliberate, or just the result of an extremely biased or myopic world view. Communication by nature only works if the parties involved are trying to understand each other. Deliberately trying to polarize or frame each sentence doesn't serve any purpose other than to fuel division.

[Clubber]

I read a comment on here I believe where someone surmised this is an effect of the anti-bully movement that happened about 10 years ago. Now we not only have bullies (in the traditional term) but we have mobs of people who are eager to bully a perceived bully and have zero tolerance for anything other than their subscribed world view.

The antidote is the same it's been since before the internet: don't put much value in what people think about you.

[indubitable]

In many things in life when people decide a 'side' it's most often an entirely subjective decision. This is by itself not immediately terrible - take a side and then adjust as you find a view more, or less, defensible or reasonable. The problem is when people get into situations where they consider the alternative absolutely unthinkable.

How can they respond to views that challenge their own in this case? I think this is why you see 95% of "discussion" in contentious topics end up as being loaded with little more than straw men, ad hominem, and all the other fun products of internet "discussion." Of course the problem is people thinking anything ought be unthinkable. The domain of the faithful is one I'd rather never rejoin again -- perhaps a personal voyage too few have been given the opportunity to undertake in today's society.

[dhimes]

Indeed. Wisdom is a thing.

[fredgrott]

no we have not...social media is a volunteer activity same with using the phone posting letter to the editor of a newspaper etc...everyone has a choice to turn it off and not post...

you seek to make the young avoid ownership for their actions..something out fuck of a President does daily...No-fucking way sir or mam!

Taking ownership of one's voluntary actions is called...wait for it..wait for it...LEADERSHIP....

Rather than feed the young to disaster and no-sense of ownership let's lead the young to owning every voluntary action they may take..its a better and more pleasing future..

[jojopotato]

It’s not always a volunteer activity in social situations, unless you want to go around telling other people to not take any photos of you.

[meowfly]

I've really struggled to understand where this mindset comes from and it seems to be pervasive enough to be the majority opinion for most internet commentators.

Where does mercy fit into all of this? Should a person who tries to change their life still be beholden to a recording of bad behavior from the past?

My experience is that executives are often extremely image conscious and if a google search brought up anything unsavory about a hire it could be career limiting. Given that it is almost impossible to know that an honest change-of-heart had occurred, it would be much easier to employ candidates who won't bring any baggage.

[pizza]

people don't tend to spread rumors talking shit about themselves online. but they are vulnerable to their many acquaintances.

[intopieces]

Can you explain how I have the option to have people not talk about me online? I would like to sign up for this service immediately.