Michael VealeAug 12, 2025
In a new digital twist to environmental individualisation of responsibility, the UK government is now advising people to “[d]elete old emails and pictures” in data centres to help with the current drought. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-drought-group-meets-to-address-nationally-significant-water-shortfall
Show threadRaymond RussellAug 12, 2025

@mikarv

Doesn't even make logical sense.
Surely the act of deletion surely potentially uses more energy/water than just leaving things be.
Anyway, its all moot because there's no real way of knowing where your data is actually stored. So how could you hope to affect local data centre resource use.

Show threaddemofoxAug 12, 2025
@raymierussell @mikarv plus, let's be honest, they are retaining those "deleted files" to train AI with.
Show threadRaymond Russell
@demofox
Absolutely.
If we really wanted to save resources it would be to restrict AI, Search and other data centre activities but that would get in the way of AWS and Google. As ever the individual is urged to take action while corporations, meh not so much.
Aug 12, 2025 at 4:34pmWeb