Self-Censorship, Privacy and Forgiveness

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

These days I’m more and more cautious of what I make public, and especially what I post online. I censor myself. I refrain from saying what I actually mean in precise terms.

I do this, not because I want to avoid causing offense. I’m actually okay with offending people, although that’s usually not a goal. I’m censoring myself because what I say online gets stored forever, attributed to me with zero guarantees around providing context, and with what seems like an infinite statute of limitations.

It used to be that when people failed, the consequences were local and temporary. People used to apologise after learning what they did was wrong. People used to forgive. You could be ignorant or wrong about something, even immature in certain aspects in life, and while you were by no means exempt from consequences you could own up to your mistakes.

Now everything persists. Everything has a permalink, recorded video, or screenshot. Everyone has a digital accountability arsenal. These persistence weapons are sold to us in the form of iPhone features, queryable profiling analytics, and entertainment on social media and reddit.

While the democratization of these accountability weapons is indispensible in fighting oppressive systems, they need to be treated with more respect in daily use. By filming one of your fellow human beings having a bad day, you’re probably not sticking around to film the equally human apology or repentance. In fact, it’s so easy to publish such content, and get dopamine hits for doing so, that the person in question likely won’t have the opportunity to apologise. With their reputation tarnished they’re then forced to go on the defence, thereby adopting what’s perhaps the worst moment in their life as part of their identity. I don’t know how many of these episodes it would take for me to start spiraling until I genuinely become a “bad” person, but it’s not many.

There’s no equivalent digital, persisted way to apologize and forgive. And for as long as this is true, I will continue investing in my privacy. For who’s to say that my words or actions aren’t unforgivable, or even illegal, whether it be now or in the future by some authoritarian state. If you think that’s a hot take, consider the movies or TV shows you used to like that didn’t age well. Then try to recall your own behaviour from the same time period. I know I have many regrets. Thankfully, no permalinks or recordings exist, so in many cases I have the privilege of forgetting and being forgotten. Poor Gen-Z and beyond.

The above is just some thoughts I have on a subject I’m not an expert on. I’d love to learn more, so if you know of any research articles or well-written books on similar topics, please recommend them to me.

Ramblings on kinbiko.com

Self-Censorship, Privacy and Forgiveness