I used to work with someone who was arrested for having a beer in his possession when he was 20 years old. The circumstances were pretty colorful, and so it made the local news. He had since worked his way into management at the company we worked for. One day he mentioned that the article about his arrest finally fell off the Google index after more than a decade, and he was relieved about that. One of his reports in the room immediately jumped on Google and used their tool for re-indexing sites to get the article back in the results for his boss, and then he proudly announced how he "solved that problem!"
Of all the career-limiting moves I've witnessed in my lifetime, that one was pretty near the top.
I'm honestly surprised that after 20 years of the Internet "never forgetting" things like this, we haven't gotten a lot better about forgiving them instead.
Much has been written about Gen Z having a tiny appetite for risky behavior, and the causes are attributed to all sorts of stuff. But my entirely unscientific bet is that there is a real chilling effect to growing up as the first generation that had entirely digital “permanent records” and zero tolerance policies for their entire lives. Very little room for error when, regardless of whether you learned anything from it or not, your mistake is recorded forever and searchable by anybody. And because the rest of society didn’t grow up with that level of retention, they’ll still judge you for it being documented.
I have to admit I kind of inflicted this on my own child. She has her paper diaries, which are sacred, not to be touched, and a box for putting any artifacts she doesn't want me to see. But for any interaction with electronic devices, the rule is "don't do anything you don't want your parents to see. Just assume we can."
But the thing is, her permanent record exists, and I do not control it, so inhibiting her from entering things into it is somewhat called for.
Of all the career-limiting moves I've witnessed in my lifetime, that one was pretty near the top.