In today’s fast-moving world, thanks mostly to developing technologies, too many past societal standards and mores have been tossed aside. Take for instance, “think before you speak” which lends itself to “own what you say”. It seems to be a concept that’s been put to an early grave. If you choose to pay attention to some of the people who post in forums you know exactly what I’m referring to.
If you expose yourself to the hateful rhetoric that fills the news mediums these days, then you can’t help but notice things are said on social media, then removed by the statements’ creators, not by any censoring committee attached to the social platform(s).
This ability to delete lets the perpetrator off the hook a little too easily. To those who choose the convenience of blurting something out on social media knowing that they can then delete it, for the purpose of creating some short-term, usually inflammatory effect, I say delete the delete button and make that person own what they say. I realize I’ve just become very unpopular with just about every politician with a Twitter account. If a perpetrator of the “delete button” era wants to delete a statement, then the only way they should be able to do that is to delete their whole account and erase their existence from that particular platform. Then the platform should not allow that username to ever be used again, and if not that drastic, at least for a period of time, to cause difficulty in re-establishing a connection to the same base.
Now for the myopic viewpoints out there, I understand what they feel the ramifications my proposal will cause. Some of the most closed minds will say this goes against freedom of speech. My response would be that it is exactly the opposite. Freedom of speech remains fully intact but the freedom to blurt out anything and then delete it does not. And what could be more supportive of freedom of speech than someone proffering the idea of “say whatever you want, but just own it afterward.”
One thing you can count on, no matter how much controversy this post may create I will NOT be deleting it.
