And the question of unintended sharing.
So an ultrasounds fascinating, not just because of the picture of
the young person that's growing, but because of the framing of that.
If you look at an ultrasound picture, by default,
it lists the mothers name, it lists the location where the photos taken.
It list the estimated date of birth.
It list a whole bunch of other sort of vital statistics.
And so that information is captured in an image.
And we often don't think of image as a sharing too much extra data if you'd
like but it's one of those real moments where it's trivial work for an algorithm
to read that information, turn back into text and make it searchable for example.
And equally if that image persists then the longer it's there,
the more likely it could be read through those sort of filters.
And of course we've got the basic question of GPS being turned on on many devices.
So these questions of traces, these questions of history and
these questions of prophecy all wrapped together In that instant of sharing.
So let's go to the other end of the life cycle now to the death end.
What's your take on the right to be forgotten with social media?
The right to be forgotten is incredibly challenging because it involves
us reconceptualizing social media from the ground up.
Social media at it's heart is driven by of
what I talk about as a social media contradiction.
So as a service to users we generally conceptualize the social
part as the communicative ability, is the joy of sharing.
That's the thing that we focus on as most important for
the companies that provide these platforms,
their invested in the media half, is the fact that this information persist,
that this information is aggregatable and analysable, and
you can basically derived advertising from the persistance of that information.
And this contradiction is a really hard thing to see in the moment if you like,
but really drives a lot of the challenges that come up.
So, the right to be forgotten in relation to the social media contradiction then is
we're going to have to basically have social media companies that work out
a different way to do their practice.
If we genuinely want social media that doesn't persist.
If we want social media that is in the moment and goes away.
Than the question of the way that most platforms operate has to change.
I think that's a really fundamental difficulty because these platforms
are premised on
the more information we've got about you, the better picture we can build,
the better we can sell tag of advertising.
I do think especially for young people there
creating spaces where they can experiment with their identity and
make mistakes and not haunt them forever is incredibly important.
And I do think that while Snapchat might not be the perfect
answer that idea of social media that deletes by default I think is very,
very important and I think does provide some of those spaces of
youthful experimentation that you have to have.
If everything we ever do is recorded none of us would be successful adults.
We'd all be able to point to things and go, that was the big mistake you made.
It's recorded forever, I will judge you because of that.
And I think if we can cordon off certain spaces for
young people at least, that's a significant part of, I think the broader
right to be forgotten conversations for adults will be a much harder one, but
I think if culturally I think we still sort of acknowledge that young people
should get the benefit of not being judged by all the rules that apply to adults.
I think that's where the right to be forgotten conversation is most important.
Some of what Dr.
Lever highlights is the seemingly innocent social media practices that we
undertake in our everyday lives may have unthought of consequences.