Our digital shadows have a paradoxical relationship with time. Only recently, the Economist warned that "the world is losing its ability to reconstruct history”. Already one year after the 2011 Egyptian revolution 10 percent of all resources shared on social media were permanently lost. At the same time, embarrassing pictures, viral rumours and complete records of our online activities suggest that the Internet simply doesn't forget. The case of Egypt's digital legacy cannot only help to explain this paradox; it also poses important ethical questions.