This week I was introduced to the interesting concept of a “digital tattoo”. As a person who has real tattoos (no, you can’t see them) and also a fairly substantial digital presence, the comparison got me thinking. How important is the permanence of our online identities and the content that we post online? Furthermore, how difficult would it be to completely erase your online life? Or remove that unwanted digital ink if you will.
I have been actively involved in some facet of the internet since the mid 90′s when I got my first dial up modem. The internet was a very different place back then. It moved at a slower pace and was generally less permanent. To send a picture online back then you would have to scan a developed photograph. Due to attachment size restrictions you would often have to resize it. Email storage was limited and the entire process was dependent on having a scanner or a digital camera which, at that time, many people did not. The recipient might hold onto your photo until their computer crashed or they would simply view it, respond to your email than send the photo they’d just complimented you on to the trash. If the person had an ink jet printer they might have printed off a grainy copy but otherwise digital images were not permanent.
The catastrophe of having a hard drive crash and losing all of your data was also a major concern. As I moved along with my career in I.T. I worked a short stint as a network administrator. One of my main responsibilities was performing daily tape drive backups of company data. Emails, documents, spreadsheets, etc. All of the critical things a company can’t afford to lose in the event of a hardware failure. Some weeks I felt like all I did was backup, archive and restore data. The necessity to ensure the safety and permanence of our data has led to the development of tools like cloud drives and online storage that protect our information. We have data redundancy and I.T professionals who work round the clock to protect our information. Which is a good thing..right?
Social networks like Instagram and Facebook provide users with unlimited photo storage. For free. Anyone that has ever lost a digital camera or phone would agree that online photo storage is an invaluable service but what happens to your content once it has been uploaded? How easy is it to remove should you choose? According to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities you own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:
For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give Facebook the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant Facebook a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it. It is important to note that this sharing includes third party applications so you should be mindful of installing apps that access the content of your social networks. You should also ensure that you have the appropriate privacy settings engaged which is a critical step in protecting your online content.
I think the major consideration to make here is that before posting something online you have to think ahead. Much like a tattoo, the content that you post CAN be removed. By simply uploading content to a social network you are not diminishing or reducing your right to ownership of that content. Through your social network’s privacy settings you also control how that content is used. However, also like a tattoo the process of removing that content can be a long and painstaking process and traces of your past online endeavours may still be visible long after your social media channels are closed.
So before you ink your new girlfriends name on your chest, or post the photos from your best friends bachelor party ensure that you take the time to think ahead. How does the image or post portray you, your friend or your subject’s character? Also think about how you or they will feel about the digital foot print it will leave behind.