Internet fame, or as seems to be more often the case - infamy, may be fleeting to human memory, but is far from fleeting to digital memory.
Eric Schmidt probably really was joking when he remarked that in the future kids would be allowed to change their names, but jokes often carry significant truths.
Writing last month Eric Couros and Katia Hildebrandt attempted to deal with this issue. They wrote:
Our current strategy for dealing with digital identity isn’t working. And while we might in the future have new laws addressing some of these digital complexities (for instance, new laws are currently being proposed around issues of digital legacy) such solutions will never be perfect, and legislative changes are slow. Perhaps, instead, we might accept that the Internet has changed our world in fundamental ways and recognize that our societal mindset around digital missteps must be adjusted in light of this new reality: perhaps, in a world where forgetting is no longer possible, we might instead work towards greater empathy and forgiveness, emphasizing the need for informed judgment rather than snap decisions.There's nothing particularly new in what Couros and Hildebrandt write. We've long been aware of this situation. But I get the feeling that their emphasis on empathy and forgiveness suggests that something has changed. Rather than resisting the problematic reality of digital identity they seem to be acknowledging that it has already won, has superseded how we related to identity in the past. And once we acknowledge this we also have to admit that the best we can hope for is to adjust our lives to it.