The Internet Doesn't Forget, so It's Up to Us to Forgive

Two stories relating to the dangers of the Internet caught my attention this week: (1) the plight of Ala Buzreba and (2) the Ashley Madison data disclosure. Although they deal with different situations, these stories demonstrate how the consequences of personal decisions endure in the Internet age.

Young People Can’t See the Future

The CBC reported that the Liberal candidate in the riding of Calgary Nose Hill, Ala Buzreba, stepped down after some offensive tweets on her account @votealabuzeba were discovered by Conservative supporters. The tweets that Buzreba sent years ago as a teenager were surely tactless. (You can Google the particulars for yourself.) However, what interests me about this story is that Buzreba’s apology could not sufficiently remedy the damage that was already done to her political career. Everyone makes mistakes, and we ought to reserve some degree of leeway for today’s young people who don’t have the luxury of having their bad choices be forgotten. I would be less forgiving of, say, an adult’s gross conduct while in office. (Remember Rob Ford?) It takes a lot of guts for a young person to own up to her mistakes instead of disavowing them, and although I know realistically most people won’t treat Buzreba’s conduct as a mere gaffe, she deserves respect for being brave enough to open herself up to engage in federal politics in the first place.

Betrayal Isn’t a Laughing Matter

When news of the Ashley Madison breach broke last month, some doubted whether the hackers’ claims were true. Today, a massive amount of data proving the veracity of these claims has been released on the so-called dark web. Soon enough, it will become accessible to ordinary Internet users. I’m impressed by the depth of technical information about data security I’ve learned through my reading about this story, but I’m kind of (yet not totally) shocked about the lack of compassion in the Twittersphere. Heaps of boring tweets about how it’s a good day to be a divorce lawyer and how cheaters deserve whatever they get predominate. This is exactly the kind of sassy fodder on which Twitter thrives. However, I hope this isn’t representative of society’s general sentiments on this issue. Whatever their conduct, Internet users are real people with real lives and feelings, and we ought to remember that we’re not entitled to judge other people’s lives based on an invasion of their privacy. Profiting from marital discord is obviously shady business, but my fear is that this breach that many are taking as amusement for the time being has the potential to turn grave in the near future.

Photo by Takashi .M (CC BY)