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Amemory hole is a fictional device for destroying historical evidence inGeorge Orwell's 1949dystopian novelNineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel,the Party'sMinistry of Truth systematically erases inconvenient historical documents, in effect, re-writing history to match the ever-changing state propaganda.

InNineteen Eighty-Four, the "memory hole" is a small chute leading to a largeincinerator used forcensorship:^[1][2]

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a smallpneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.^{[3]: 34–35}

The fictional totalitarian regime of Oceania maintains complete dominance over its population through the control of history and memory, specifically by erasing the past and forging historical facts. This historical forgery enforces a collective reality onto the masses, ensuring that the Party and its ideology persists. This concept is expressed in the principle doctrine ofIngsoc: "Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past".^[4]

Nineteen Eighty-Four's protagonistWinston Smith, who works in theMinistry of Truth, is routinely assigned the task of revising old newspaper articles in order to serve the propaganda interests of the government.^[4] In one instance, the weekly chocolate ration was decreased from 30 grams to 20. The next day the newspaper announced that the chocolate ration had not been reduced to 20 grams per week, butincreased to 20 grams. Any previous mention of the ration having been 30 grams per week needed to be destroyed.

The memory hole is referenced while O'Brien tortures Smith; O'Brien produces evidence of a coverup by the Party, exciting Smith that such documentation exists. However, O'Brien then destroys the evidence in the memory hole and denies not only the existence of the evidence but also any memory of his actions. Smith realizes that this isdoublethink in action, as O'Brien has actively suppressed his memory of both a politically inconvenient fact and his action taken to destroy the evidence of it.^[5]

Don Pittis, aCBS News columnist express the worries the 2014 "right to be forgotten" decision of theEuropean Court of Justice creates a precedent for governments to create legal mechanisms that would essentially function as "memory holes" in ephemeral electronic storage systems.^[1]The Daily Telegraph cited Wikipedia co-founderJimmy Wales describing "the EU's Right to be Forgotten as deeply immoral, as the organisation that operates the online encyclopedia warned the ruling will result in an Internet riddled with memory holes".^[6] Other commentatorsdisagreed with negative opinions of the kind.

• /dev/null – Device file that discards all data written to itPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Ash heap of history – English phrase
• Bit bucket – Lost data in computing
• Blue wall of silence – Informal rule that American police do not report misconduct by other officers
• Book censorship in the United States – Censorship of books in the United States
• Burn bag – Bag used to contain classified items for burning
• Censorship of images in the Soviet Union
• Cover up – Attempt to conceal evidencePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Damnatio memoriae – Exclusion of a person from official records and accounts
• De-commemoration
• Historical revisionism – Reinterpretation of a historical account
• The Memory Hole (web site) – Web archivePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets, a website whose goal was to preserve documents which were in danger of being lost
• Motivated forgetting
• Pact of forgetting – Political decision in Spain to intentionally ignore the political legacy of FrancoPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Postcolonial amnesia
• Retcon – Revision of existing facts in succeeding works of fictionPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Selective omission
• Spiral of silence – Political science and mass communication theory
• Truth-seeking

• The dictionary definition ofmemory hole at Wiktionary

• Fictional elements introduced in 1949
• English phrases
• Historical negationism
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Political catchphrases

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Wikipedia articles needing rewrite from January 2026
• All articles needing rewrite
• Use dmy dates from May 2021
• Pages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets via Module:Annotated link