By Lauren Harriman
California’s new eraser law lets minors remove their posts from websites. But in a time where everything anyone posts is a google search away from being uncovered, is Internet erasability really something we want to teach the next generation? While I recognize that children need the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, should be we teaching them that the Internet is an acceptable place to make those mistakes? Rather than encouraging children to share every uncensored opinion though on Twitter, every bad outfit choice on Instagram, and every awkward dance move on Youtube, perhaps it’s better to instruct the young generation that the Internet is more like the podium at the school assembly rather than the note passed in class. I’m all for encouraging children to experiment, but perhaps that experimentation is best done at home, or at least in person, rather than in front of an Internet audience of over 1 billion people. Although the new law allows for the erasure of content, there is no way to erase it from the minds of the multitude of people who have already seen it.
Read more at: New California Law Lets Teen Press ‘Erasure Button’ Online
