Let's just start over. If King David spoke English, that might've been his epitaph. Leaving the Ark of the Covenant at a farm, marrying Saul's daughter Michal and his public murder-marriage blunder would've all been a gaffe to quickly remove from the annals of Scripture. California's Senate Bill 568 (SB 568) may lend precedent to give David the right to remove his infamous character from social media. Had a sweeping SB 568 happend in the vault of history, Bible-readers would never see Nathan's strength in confronting David's inconsistencies, David's humility to correct his behavior and God's grace in working through both men.
The 2015 enaction of SB 568 will provide provision for minors to request embarassing photos or pictures they have posted removed from online presentation. It also grants greater protection against advertising inappropriate products or services to minors through digital platforms.
SB 568 is hard to enforce. With more lenient guidelines for social media and advertising inplace world-wide, California can expect an uphill climb on either prosecution or censorship outside state jurisdiction as they work to create a more consequence-free environment for minors online.
While the bill presents itself as benevolent, receiving bi-partisan support from the legislative and executive branches of state government, it could bear consequences for students later in life. Carl Pickhardt notes in Psychology Today that the period of development prior to one's 18th birthday is highly habit forming. Pickhardt notes that habits give routine, organization and self-discipline that prepare the young person to lead a life that works for them. SB 568 would like to establish the habit of removing controversy and conflict rather than addressing it.
California's new bill, signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, is nothing new. Most social media platforms provide the user with rights to remove content. SB 568 does not require a sweeping removal of the incriminating content, apart from what the minor requests from the specific site. If a picture or post is published elsewhere, the minor would be required to request it's removal from the specific site. If the minor runs into a Randi Zuckerberg situation, the minor would not have legal rights to request removal under SB 568.
So why the attention to SB 568? It appears that many are looking to government to protect minors from themselves. This consequence and conscience-free approach has been dubbed the "let boys be boys" bill, allowing minors to behave as they would like with the freedom to erase any incriminating habits that may impact a future in college or employment. SB 568 appears to be the first stop on the internet eraser-train.
James Steyer wrote a letter to Governor Jerry Brown. Steyer is the CEO of Common Sense Media, a non-profit "dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in a world of media and technology." Common Sense's website may be one of the single best resources for training and preparing teens and adults to live in a media saturated world.
In Steyer's letter to Brown he comments, "Too often, young people post information they later regret but can't delete from the online and mobile world. All of us -- especially kids -- should be able to delete what we post." As noted elsewhere in his letter, Steyer desires to see a more comprehensive scrub plan for digital users, beyond the under-18 SB 568 framework.
For the digital native, to quickly remove postings as Steyer is recommending will directly interefere with how the world operates. It might be akin to Grandpa literally eating his words at the dinner table. Rather than reconciling his heart to his wife, his friends or his church through admission and forgiveness, Steyer would have Grandpa stop the world in a Clark Kent fashion, remove his offense and start the hour glass once again as if the conflict didn't happen.
Digital natives, those born after 1983, live efficiently, not differently. Texting a friend rather than stopping-by, posting a comment in class instead of raising a hand and logging on for a pizza as an alternative to phoning Dominoes are a few life effiencies of the digital native. These actions haven't necessitated a new-breed of humans or made those older than 30 different. Digital natives simply interact with their world in a more efficient way. One could say those under 30 are faster friends, workers and deviants.
The Bible portrays crisis in need of correction, but it never does away with crisis. Instead, time and again, Bible-readers find discord dismantled through Christ's missing presence in the tomb. The resurrection is the great reversal, not the great eraser. Jesus didn't die on the cross so people wouldn't sin, He died on the cross to give victory over sin. His death and resurrection display victory over all challenges and conflicts that create separation between people and the world, people and eachother and people and God. Interaction with technology and online media needs to emulate Christ's intentional address of wrongs through redemption, not avoidance through an eraser.
