Summary Of Jeffrey Rosen The Web Means The End Of Forgetting

Social media and technology plays a huge part in today’s society. People do things and post them up thinking it won’t affect them in the future. Once something is uploaded onto the internet it never goes away. In his essay, “The Web Means the End of Forgetting,” published in July of 2010, written by Jeffrey Rosen, a Professor at Law at the George Washington University Law School and a graduate from Harvard College and Yale Law School. Rosen argues that the issue of social media sites in the new era we are living in is getting hard for us to forget the things we post on the internet like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Instagram, etc. Rosen states, “... the Internet never seems to forget which is threatening, at an almost existential level, our

For example, Rosen states, “According to a recent survey by Microsoft, seventy percent of U.S. recruiters report that they have rejected candidates because of information found online,” (Rosen, Para. 3). Most of the time it is a necessity for companies to do online and background research on candidates because of wanting a safe environment to work in. Social media sites are the fastest way to see who a person truly is. But sometimes it can just be a character they posses because that’s what they’re followers want to see rather than their true self. Jokes can be made and other people do not see it that way which leads to your workplace seeing it and thinking that you’re a bad and trouble person. Rosen’s article informs his readers that you don’t want to be that person where one little thing you did on social media defines your whole life and you’re known for it. The new privacy on Facebook made certain parts of a user’s profile public which caused many criticism from users. Rosen also credits four democratic senators, Charles Schumer of New York, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Al Franken of Minnesota, and Mark Begich of Alaska. The four democratic senators were also concerned about the privacy changes Facebook made. They expressed their concern of “instant personalization” feature and new privacy settings to the chief executive of