Digital tools remember things humans once had permission to forget.

Forgetting used to do quiet work. Old versions of people faded, mistakes went out of circulation, someone could move to a new town and simply be who they were now. Systems that remember everything have removed a mechanism we depended on without ever agreeing to give it up.

Extend to others the forgetting the record will not. Do not treat someone’s ten-year-old post as current evidence. And where you can, let your own old material go rather than curating a permanent archive of who you used to be.