My thoughts this week revolve around access to information; and a major downside: Privacy. For all the wonders of social media, the number of times I hear someone regret putting something on a blog, Facebook, or any other social media, well, I've lost count.
There is a saying that 'the internet never forgets.' And I've found that to be very true. Even if you delete a post, the internet still archives it. Links might still reference it. And whatever you posted slowly percolates onto the internet as a whole. How far it goes depends on how many people find it interesting and in what fashion. But even if your post doesn't go 'viral', it will still be out there in some form.
What's the implication of this? Well, even if we're not talking about personally identifiable information, it could be as simple as a post you make in anger on facebook that you later delete. Since it's never really gone, someone viewing that could end up with a very negative image of you. More specifically, for libraries, it means something like an embarrassing typo, a mis-typed date, time or location, can spread, even if you correct the original post. It also means that library staff and patrons can accidentally find themselves embarrassed or worse, by something that was never really supposed to be public.
Interesting thoughts. It is true that it's nearly impossible to delete something from the web, meaning that you need to think through what you post. That being said, I do wonder how "findable" all that information is. Unless you were looking, would you really find that 3 year old library blog post?
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