ldWe were all young once, and thankfully for some of us, our young and stupid mistakes were made in a time when there was no internet, no social media, and when the world was a lot less connected than today. Nowadays saying the wrong thing online can result in that mistake following you for months or years to come.This is why a new campaign, dubbed iRights, has been launched in the UK where they are advocating for the rights of children to be forgotten. Basically the idea is that it will allow for children and teenagers to be able to edit or delete the content that they have posted online, thus giving them a second chance to scrub their mistakes from the internet.
According to Baroness Shields, the UK’s Minister for Internet Safety and Security, “iRights gives a unique insight into how government can join with technology companies, civil society and business to make a better digital world for young people. We are using iRights in education, business and in our own services and digital communications.”
While it is a great idea, it’s safe to say that whatever is posted on the internet never truly goes away. However companies like Google have since offered their services to at the very least remove mention of previous incidents from their search engines, making it harder to track said information down.