Protecting Forgetting and the 'Right to be Forgotten' in the Context of Social Media

摘要

The digital age, with its millions of uploaded content files, is characterised by the global memory that it has created and its inability to forget. The wish to share digital content and the importance of forgetting seem to be an antinomy of objectives which will be analysed in this paper. Different concepts have been developed to give insights into the new phenomenon of sharing and making all kinds of information public. Legislation and technology are demanded to control the power of conglomerates that may violate individual privacy rights, yet an overall solution to protect 'the right to be forgotten' is difficult to find. It is more than a phenomenon; it is the transformation of societies in a global digital environment. Individuals must understand how life works in the context of a digital environment, thus creating an awareness of their own actions in digital life.