The Archive as Prison
Digital memory is perfect and permanent. A teenage mistake, once captured, can follow a person forever. Without a mechanisms for forgetting, the archive becomes a prison that denies the human capacity for growth and change. Archivist Kate Theimer argues: "The digital archive must be a living, responsive institution, not a prison for the past."
Implementation: Escape Hatches
Ethical preservation requires building "escape hatches" into the archive:
1. The Takedown Request
A clear, transparent process for individuals to request removal. This is not censorship; it is respect for consent. Requests should be honored unless the public interest (accountability for powerful figures) overwhelmingly outweighs the private harm.
2. Gentle Deletion
If a creator deletes their own work, we should usually respect that signal. While the instinct is to "save everything before it vanishes," explicit deletion is a form of metadata—it tells us the creator wanted it gone.
Field Notes
Public Figures vs. Private Citizens: The Right to be Forgotten is not absolute. Politicians do not get to delete their past speeches. The right scales inversely with power: the more power you wield, the less privacy you can claim.
The "Streisand Effect": Ironically, attempting to delete widespread content often draws more attention to it. Ethical archivists must navigate this paradox—sometimes "sealing" an artifact (hiding it from public view) is more effective than deleting it, which leaves a conspicuous hole.