People used to say that when you post something online, it stays there forever, but that’s not true. Letters, documents, and even film have longer lifespans than digital files. Software gets updated, accounts get banned or deleted, and posts are taken down. Add to this the hassle of storing data and the sheer volume of stuff you’d have to not only save but organize and maintain, and you see the trouble we’re in.

On the one hand, this is a cultural tragedy. A lot of beautiful and meaningful art won’t be accessible. But it’s also a societal problem. The fragility of online artifacts and our lack of good archives should be thought of, alongside the usual suspects of “algorithms that drive polarization” and “the difficulty of content moderation,” as one of the driving forces behind the “post-truth” world people say we’re living in. Misinformation thrives when the receipts are hard to find and the past is a jumble of he-said she-said, broken links, and self-interested spin.


https://howtodothingswithmemes.substack.com/p/memory-is-a-contest/