folio

Despite making a living from the web, meaning I really should know better, I’ve somehow managed to leave digital footprints behind all over the place. A source of great regret. One of them, an old Facebook account, somehow never properly closed before losing access to the email address and phone number associated with it. Try as I may, I cannot convince Facebook to close it down, for I cannot prove it was mine.

Another, interactions with a troll who came my way five years ago. Thinking him sincere, I engaged with him and regrettably left an indelible trail back to me. From that chap himself, I don’t fear much harm, but from those who follow him? The ultra-nationalist extremists who conspire online to seek out the fabled race traitor? Yes, of course I worry what they might do.

Then there’s the attention of others, posting links on social media which remain years after the event. A self-promotionist might embrace this, but as a man of perpetual regrets, I wish they would simply vanish into the abyss. Alas, our right to be forgotten is made complicated by the crumbs we leave in our wake.

Nowadays, I’m more adept at cleaning up after myself. Whenever I feel like withdrawing, I will do the job properly. If only I had had that wisdom in my late twenties and early thirties. I suppose we were not so clued up about privacy then, the internet still in its infancy.

But what futility, for here I keep a blog, writing publicly before all the world! Yes, it does cross my mind frequently that I should obliterate this too. As it is, I just regularly purge or unpublish whatever sentiment I have second thoughts about. Occasionally in a panic, if paranoia convinces me that bover boots have been sent marching.

Yep, privacy can be a serious business in this age of extremes and extremism of every flavour. If only I had been wiser in my navigation of the digital terrain in earlier times, and not forever foolishly naive. Lesson learned.