# Gopher Archive and Civil Rights // 19-10-26

[solderpunk][1] writes about the Zaibatsu's [civil right][2] i.e the
user's right to have their account immediately and fully deleted upon
their request. He also writes about the possible loss to the community
of valuable content published in such accounts, and whether preserving
it in publically accessible archives is ok.  In my opinion, they are
totally different things not to be mixed up.

I fully agree any user should have this right on any system, as any
human being must have the right to put an end to their life. It's the
core and final human liberty, in my opinion.

But when a user publishes content, they release their ideas into the
world, and like what I tell my neighbour cannot be unsaid, I cannot
(re)claim ownership of the word I wrote for everybody to read (which of
course implies any "right to be forgotten" is pure bovine excrement,
IMHO).  Therefore, things like archive.org or a gopher version of it
are fine.

.:.

[1]: gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/phlog/the-individual-archivist-and-ghosts-of-gophers-past.txt
[2]: gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/backstory

*written on PalmIII*