Episode Overview
Podcast: LSE: Public Lectures and Events
Episode: Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age
Speaker: Professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger (Oxford Internet Institute)
Host: Andrew Murray (LSE Law Department)
Date: August 8, 2011
The lecture explores the profound shift in human society caused by the rise of comprehensive digital memory. Professor Mayer-Schönberger investigates the societal, legal, psychological, and philosophical consequences of a world where “remembering” is now the norm—and “forgetting” has become rare, challenging notions of privacy, personal growth, and societal power dynamics. The conversation highlights why “forgetting” is a critical virtue to safeguard in the digital age, and proposes ideas for restoring balance.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. The Perils of Perfect Memory: Case Studies ([02:50]–[07:00])
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Digital Memory's Personal Costs
- Stacy Snyder: Lost her teaching certificate due to a MySpace photo (“drunken pirate”) discovered and archived by search engines, demonstrating how digital records are permanent and escape personal control.
- Andrew Feldmar: Barred from US entry after a 1965 LSD confession in an academic paper was discovered via Google by immigration, showing old digital footprints have present-day consequences.
“As much as Stacey wanted the photo to be forgotten, the Internet would not permit that.” – Mayer-Schönberger [04:30]
2. From Biological Forgetting to Digital Remembering ([07:00]–[16:00])
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Human Nature & Forgetting
- Forgetting is natural and essential—humans erase most daily experiences, focusing only on exceptions and the meaningful.
- Historically, remembering was hard, deliberate, costly (e.g., painting, script, photography) and confined to special moments.
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Technological Transformation
- Four drivers of digital memory:
- Digitization – Everything can be stored as zeros and ones.
- Cheap storage – Exponential growth (Moore's Law), making retention trivially cheap.
- Indexing – Easy retrieval, unlike the Stasi, who had massive archives but struggled to use them.
- Connectivity – Instant global replication and access.
“Forgetting was the default. Remembering was reserved for the exceptions...” – Mayer-Schönberger [12:10]
- Four drivers of digital memory:
3. Comprehensive Digital Memory: A Double-edged Sword ([16:00]–[24:00])
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Default Remembering
- Remembering is now the default—benefits include efficiency and accuracy, but deep drawbacks emerge.
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Power and Information
- Information as power: Those controlling memory wield disproportionate influence, echoing the historical role of the Catholic Church.
- Jeremy Bentham’s “Panopticon”: Digital memory creates a “temporal panopticon”—not just present surveillance, but future scrutiny.
“Such panopticum may lead people to self-censor, fearing their utterances could be misconstrued... not just today, but decades from now.” – Mayer-Schönberger [20:30]
4. Time, Judgment, and Human Flourishing ([24:00]–[29:00])
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Impediment to Self-Development
- Example: Jane & John—perfect digital recall of past email quarrels hinders reconciliation and growth, showing that old memories can crowd out present realities and forgiveness.
“Through perfect digital memory, we... deny each other a capacity to change over time, to evolve and to grow. Without forgetting, it is hard, it turns out, for us humans to forgive.” – Mayer-Schönberger [28:15]
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Psychological Insights
- Studies of rare individuals who cannot forget (e.g., “AJ”)—their lives become haunted by past details, losing ability to act or generalize.
5. The Dangers of Outsourced Memory ([29:00]–[32:30])
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Control & History
- Increasing reliance on digital records risks giving corporate controllers (Google, Facebook) the power to alter or rewrite history.
“If we begin to disregard our own recollection of our past and instead depend on digital memory... does that give those that control digital memory... the power to change history?” – Mayer-Schönberger [31:45]
6. Responses & Solutions: Six Approaches ([32:30]–[42:00])
Legal/Policy Tools
- Information Privacy Rights
- Individuals’ right to privacy—underused and less effective due to low citizen engagement.
- Information Ecology
- State-imposed limits on what can be stored/how long; protects against unpredictable misuse (e.g., Dutch citizen registry repurposed by Nazis).
Behavioral/Social Tools
- Digital Abstinence
- Refrain from engaging with sharing platforms—but is it practical or desirable?
- Cognitive Adjustment
- Societal adaptation: Learn to devalue old information. Psychologists skeptical this can happen quickly.
Technical/Design Tools
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Full Contextualization
- Store everything—including full context—to preserve accurate memory and fairness. Practicality and utility in question.
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Privacy-enabling Rights Management
- Embed “property rights” in tech (like DRM), letting users control access—risks building a perfect surveillance system.
“We may need a mix. We need to combine them and perhaps even add something else.” – Mayer-Schönberger [41:45]
7. The Case for Digital Forgetting ([42:00]–[45:45])
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Expiration Dates for Digital Content
- Proposal: Make forgetting easier by prompting users to set expiration dates for stored information, restoring effort as a factor for memory retention.
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Analogies to Analog Age
- Analog photos naturally faded into obscurity—retrieval required extra effort. Digital memory removes friction, making remembering effortless and potentially dangerous.
“Since the beginning of time, forgetting has been easy for us and remembering has been hard. In the digital age, that relationship has become reversed.” – Mayer-Schönberger [45:20]
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
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On Ephemeral Communication’s Value:
“We should not be afraid of what the future brings because it will undermine democracy, it will undermine public discourse. It's incredibly important to have robust public discourse.” – Mayer-Schönberger [49:25]
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On the Need for Systemic Change:
"We can either shut up—and I think that's wrong—or we can change the tools that surround us." – Mayer-Schönberger [49:50]
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On Privacy as a Universal Value:
“If you survey digital natives... they value privacy as much as the older generation... There's no difference. You know why? Because we all value our privacy.” – Mayer-Schönberger [65:15]
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On Market Power and Platforms:
“If I were Google, I would be unbelievably scared... You have the power. You just need to [exercise] it.” – Mayer-Schönberger [63:59]
Q&A Highlights
Are Threats of Digital Memory Overstated? ([47:11]–[51:18])
- A: Digital memory undermines the ephemeral nature of everyday interactions; people mistakenly treat platforms (e.g., Facebook) as ephemeral, leading to increased risk.
- Emphasizes that changing user behavior (“don’t say things online”) is unrealistic and undesirable; advocates for tool redesign to restore ephemerality and foster public discourse.
The Role of Law and Regulation ([51:18]–[57:41])
- Information privacy rights and ecological norms exist, but are “not particularly helpful.”
- EU considering a “right to be forgotten”—a legislative response.
- Example: Drop IO, a forgotten photo-sharing platform with built-in expiration, was acquired by Facebook, signaling regulatory and market pressures.
Age and Privacy Attitudes ([64:53]–[67:20])
- No significant difference between young and old—both value privacy strongly.
- The challenge is finding new “boundaries” and tools to support privacy in a digital world.
The Promise of Market Power ([57:46]–[63:59])
- Users overestimate their “stickiness” to platforms like Google—experiments show people can easily switch if alternatives are available.
- Market power, if mobilized, can drive platform change toward privacy.
Structure of Solutions Discussed
| Legal/Policy | Social/Behavioral | Technical/Design | |------------------------|--------------------------|------------------------------------| | Information privacy | Digital abstinence | DRM/privacy rights management | | Information ecology | Cognitive adjustment | Full contextualization | | Right to be forgotten| | Expiry dates for information |
No single approach suffices—require a combination and innovation in technology and policy.
Final Call to Action
"I urge you to give back to forgetting the role it deserves. Let us remember to forget." – Mayer-Schönberger [45:36]
For deeper insights:
Read Professor Mayer-Schönberger’s book, Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age.