Sculpting digital voids: The politics of forgetting on Facebook

Abstract

In an age where modes of storing and retaining data have become a ubiquitous presence in society, the issue of forgetting is becoming increasingly problematic. This piece figures as a theoretical contribution to the issue of forgetting in relation to social media platforms by looking at the Facebook memory app, Year in Review. Drawing on Terry Eagleton’s notion of ‘sculpting voids’, it explores the conceptual implications of digital archiving on memory, forgetting and, ultimately, the self. I argue that there is an emerging politics of forgetting and invisibility on Facebook, exploring the Eric Meyer incident on Year in Review in 2014. This incident resulted in Facebook seeking to automatically and algorithmically prevent media traces that might evoke painful memories of deceased family members and ex-partners from resurfacing on users’ yearly Year in Review videos. This practice of sculpting digital voids is conceptualized as an algorithmic mode of classification, a way of sorting people’s media objects such as photos on Facebook depending on the inferred emotional response these memory traces will elicit. Because of their ‘imagined’ nature and generative force, these practices need to be understood in relation to power. Sculpting digital voids, therefore, figures as a critical and conceptual framework for better understanding of how (in)visibilities and power relations are shaped on social media platforms.