One of the other ways that social etiquette can be misused, is the act of finding out peoples information through various forms of searching online public sources of personal data. Granted a lot of people are unaware of the massive digital footprint that they have left behind from previous accounts created long ago. This information can be used against those who no longer have access to these accounts for different reasons. For example, lets say a girl made a tumblr account years ago when she was 13, and she posted personal information about her life and about some of the things she does during her routine. Then years or even decades later, someone finds this information and resurfaces it on her new platform on twitter. Although the information that this persona found is not incriminating in any way, this persona broke a personal barrier for the girl because she did not expect anyone to find out about this information, let alone make her aware of it by resposting it and tagging her about these early posts she made.
This effect has become incredibly prevalent in twitters cancel culture as new things about a public figure resurface for a new audience to judge and decide whether this information should be relevant to who the person is in the present. At the end of the day it is important to know that things online/ on the internet should be assumed to ALWAYS be there even if deleted. Which is why newer generations should be taught that not everyone needs to post ALL information online. Teaching etiquette having respect for each other as if we were in person is something that NEEDS to happen in order to create a better space for people online. It was not done with bad intentions when the persona found that information about the girl and decided to recover this data, but the effect it had is something that they probably did not anticipate. To make things a bit more literal, through proper discussion and discourse about what a persons actions are, a hive mind should not be the judge and jury of this persons past, as everyone has a digital footprint that is hard to get rid of.
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