Preservation of History in the Digital Era
Have we taken one step forward, two steps back?
My parents have always been staunch advocates for cash over debit/credit cards. The philosophy essentially goes, if I can’t hold it, it doesn’t exist. After seeing articles detailing Google’s announcement that the company will be deleting the accounts of those who have been inactive for over 2 years, I can’t help but wonder: should I, myself keep said philosophy tucked away, just in case?
Growing up a child of the digital era and more specifically, the internet, had laid the groundwork in my trust, and maybe even preference for, most things digital. The only consistent exception to this has been my creative fiction and script writing (only some of the beat sheets though), and not even really because of any sense of creative self preservation (although that mentality is currently under reevaluation) but rather due to there being something about putting pen to paper that gets the ideas flowing. Most other works were saved digitally. Initially on hard drives, and then later on a cloud service. By and large, that still remains to be the case, though nowadays the little voice in the back of my mind is a little more persistent in telling me how I should really take some time to back up the things I consider worth keeping.
History used to be my least favorite subject in school (I’ve of course shifted since then). However, it’s still only been within the second half of my lifetime thus far that I’ve paid closer attention to how exactly it is that we study history and how we analyze the lives of those who’ve come before us. More specifically, that art is itself, another way of examining the culture and beliefs of a given group of people during a particular point in time.
“Google is deleting accounts that have been inactive for at least two years,” is the kind of announcement that at first glance, may not seem like that big of a deal. In fact, it was something that even I managed to look past initially. Then, folks started talking about it, and that was how I became aware of some of the potential pitfalls as well as the precedent something like that sent. Should it really be that easy to for the digital history of an individual to be gone, just like that? Should a company be able to do something like that without permission? What does it all mean for the preservation of history, especially in the digital era?
While tossing around this question in my mind, it didn’t take me long to draw the conclusion that there were probably some folks out there giving much deeper thought to the matter than I ever had. Turns out, there were, and I started to get more insight into the general conversations on the matter while reading through the ABC article, “Will Digital Era Mean the End of History”?
It’s a piece that lays out some of the concerns expressed by historians, archivists, and philosophers alike. While there appears to be a split between those who feel that there is much risk to a world where digital preservation reigns supreme, and those who aren’t as concerned, there were some tidbits of info that stood out to me. One of such being that companies in several industries hold complete control of the preservation of what they release. For instance, many publishers choose to prevent archivists from obtaining copies of the books they release, leaving them in sole control of how those works get stored, or if they even get stored at all. I have to admit, I was a bit surprised by the sheer amount of power a company could hold over such matters, which got the wheels spinning even faster. What if such power ends up in the wrong hands? While in order to get rid of the physical form of historical records (e.g. books), one would need to put in more effort to gather them all and destroy them, I would imagine that digital records may take less effort. If hundreds, if not thousands, of files can be accidentally wiped away with a couple of bad clicks, I can only imagine the kind of damage that an individual with intention could do.
While that google article was the initial spark that’s led me down this rabbit hole, there was another instance that added fuel to my desire to pay closer attention to this phenomenon.
Strikes have swept across the nation as workers advocate for better wages and treatment from their employers. Due to the industry’s visibility, the Hollywood strikes had a large number of eyes on them, and the practices that studios have been taking on lately have also come under scrutiny. One practice in particular, I think, brings into question what media preservation (or lack thereof) will look like in the foreseeable future and what that will mean in the grander scheme of things.
Streaming services and networks are pulling shows from their respective streaming platforms, solely in the interest of tax write offs. This left me wondering, is that just it? There’s no longer a way to watch a show/film once it’s been removed from said platform, unless studios choose to allow audiences to buy it or something?
It’s common knowledge that when you delete something, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gone forever. It’s still there on the backend, and it could still be accessed by the company if that’s what they decide to do. It’s a fact that I think has contributed to my own previous naive assumptions that digital history would be a bit …less fragile. However, I didn’t take into consideration what happens when a corporation decides that something should be gone forever. The telling of history has always lied in the hands in those with the most power to distribute said information, and now, with the age of the internet and more specifically, the ever increasingly common practice of saving information digitally, I’d argue that it’s the case now more than ever before.
In the more recent conversation surrounding banning history and books and other things of that sort, I wonder whether a society can sustain itself while caught in the grasp of fascism, and whether a world as advanced as the one we live in now, has, ironically enough, taken a few steps backward.
