Should the "Right to be Forgotten" be a global standard?Solved

I am 100% on board with this @leo_scott. The internet is the only place where you are never allowed to be a different person than you were a decade ago. It is incredibly cruel that a dumb mistake someone made at nineteen can follow them until they are fifty. 

We have this weird obsession with transparency but all it really does is give power to algorithms and HR departments. People change and our digital footprints should be allowed to change with us. If a court record is sealed or a debt is settled, that information should simply stop existing for the general public. It is about dignity more than anything else. 

I see where you are coming from laura but this honestly terrifies me from a historical perspective. Who gets to decide what is irrelevant or outdated? 

If we start letting individuals scrub the parts of their past they don’t like, we are essentially giving everyone a delete button for reality. Imagine a politician removing articles about a failed business venture or a doctor hiding old malpractice suits because they feel they have grown. Once you start breaking the links to the truth, the whole foundation of a shared reality starts to crumble. You can’t just edit the world because it makes you uncomfortable. 

It is interesting seeing this debate because here in India we are right in the middle of it. With the new Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) rules in 2026, we officially have a “Right to Erasure” but it is a massive balancing act. 

Our courts have been seeing a lot of cases where people acquitted of crimes years ago are asking for their names to be masked in online judgments so they can actually get jobs or get married without social stigma. In a society where ‘what will people say’ carries so much weight, the right to be forgotten is almost a survival tool. But we also have to deal with the Open court system where records are supposed to be public. It is a tough middle ground. We aren’t trying to rewrite history, we are just trying to make sure the digital ghost of a person doesn’t destroy their real-life future.