The Right to be Forgotten - EC Blog

You made a mistake, probably a big one. Give it a few days, weeks; who knows, maybe years. Time will heal it and your mistake will have the right to be forgotten. Suddenly, Facebook memories reminded someone that on that day, two years ago,  you made that mistake and all of the sudden, the time it took to forget your mistake doesn't matter and the wound is reopened. This phenomena is "The Right to be Forgotten" or "you can make a mistake, but technology is going to keep it alive." The Right to be Forgotten is a phenomena where, even though society will typically forget and give a second chance to people, technology causes a demise in forgetting any mistake or wrong doing. 

This phenomena can most clearly be seen, in my opinion, in the world of politics. Throughout this entire past election, we often saw media pulling old tape of Hilary Clinton and President Donald Trump in past interviews in which their prior views didn't align with their current statements. This discrepancy in beliefs and attitudes constantly called into question each individuals credibility. Although these statements were of the past, some as old as 20+ years, they were still used against the individuals and society, who had most likely forgot these statements were made, suddenly became unforgiving of these prior remarks. Some of them, stuck throughout the entire election and others were brought up and didn't have quite as large of an impact; however, the phenomena remained the same and played the same role. 

What "The Right to be Forgotten" has exemplified to me is, if you're going to be stupid, or make a mistake, try not doing it where you're being recorded or video taped. If so, someone is probably going to keep it for a very long time and use it against you in the future. It also has shown me, that regardless of the prior incidents, we should still give people a second chance.