
Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic - danso
https://www.cjr.org/innovations/google-journalistic-right-to-be-forgotten-by-claiming-its-journalistic.php
======
darawk
Seems pretty journalistic to me. This "right to be forgotten" seems incredibly
dangerous to me. Should we give Trump the right for his bankruptcies to be
forgotten? Do we give child molesters the right for their crimes to be
forgotten? Why should people have the right to have things they don't like
wiped from the historical record?

EDIT: I should point out, I do understand the other side. People shouldn't be
punished forever for a crime they've already paid their ostensible debt for.
However, I think this is a pretty nuanced issue, and a universal 'right to be
forgotten' or a blanket "everything about everyone is accessible forever" is
probably not the right solution.

~~~
jbigelow76
_Should we give Trump the right for his bankruptcies to be forgotten?_

Removed from google != removed from public record. If google has become our
only source of information we are pretty much screwed. If Trump were to have
his bankruptcies "forgotten" by google then journalists would still report
when relevant since he is a celebrity/(sigh)politician, and any entities
considering doing business with him or anyone should be doing proper due
diligence.

Google CANNOT become our only source of truth.

Edit: grammar.

Edit 2: My point is about the perception of Google as the only relevance
source of information for society. Not a value judgement on the concept of a
"right to be forgotten" from any source or surfacer of information.

~~~
losteric
Google cannot become our _only_ source of truth, but should we eliminate it as
_a_ source of truth?

What about other search engines? Social media shares? What happens when a
journalist publishes an article based on offline investigation, does the right
to be forgotten still apply? Search engines need to fight libelous SEO
attacks, but this is a deeply unsettling over-reaction.

Let's drop the Orwellian phrasing and call it what it is: "Right to hide the
past". Forget the truth, security through obscurity.

Knowledge is power, and search engines are the map.

edit:

And hopefully it's obvious the issue of search results is separate from
consumer data mining/ad profiling.

~~~
nlowell
The right to be forgotten is meant to protect individuals' privacy. You sound
as if you believe that a world in which all knowledge was public forever would
be a better world. I disagree with this and think that we have to weigh it
with individual privacy and safety. Not to mention the fact that these search
engines are not 100% accurate, so it would be beneficial at least to allow
people to remove inaccurate sources.

Embarrassing / reputation-affecting knowledge being available to the public
forever is not the same as truth being available. Especially now that we see
how engines like Youtube go out of their way to offer extreme and provocative
information, we should not leave it to search engines to be unregulated
sources of information about individuals. Search engines will not tell your
employers that you work diligently everyday but they will show an offensive
tweet of yours from 2007 if that's what gets clicks and reactions.

~~~
losteric
Address the problem, not the symptoms. The problem is at the platform level,
so regulate platforms like Facebook. Search engines simply search what they
scrape.

* If someone feels consequences of an offensive 2007 tweet, just delete it. Platforms should be required to make it easy to delete content.

* If someone is scared of saying controversial things, avoid platforms that require real identities. There are plenty of anonymous platforms.

* Uphold social media to the same standards of traditional media, requiring truth and propagation of redactions and corrections. Libel and slander are well-established concepts.

* Demand discretion from friends. In college, my group had a strict "no-camera" rule when it came to embarrassing or unlawful shenanigans. My parent's generation had the same rule.

Hiding search results does _not_ address the problem. If someone posts a
photoshop of "Eric driving drunk" on Twitter, I want that post promptly
removed... the search results are just a symptom.

~~~
mynewtb
So someone posted a real photo of 'Eric driving drunk' to the web. Eric did
not approve of that in any way and wants it gone. The someone could not care
less. What is the solution in your model?

~~~
greglindahl
Search engines only show what's posted by other people, so while they're a
convenient target, they aren't the actual bad actor.

Our legal system tends to attack actual bad actors, not convenient targets.
Unless the Internet is involved. The way RTBF and DMCA work, search engines
bear 100% of the cost, and people don't ever go after the actual bad actors.

By the way, in the US, if Tabloid X publishes Eric's photo, that's 100% legal
thanks to the First Amendment, as long as the _photographer_ agrees. Eric has
no part. Attacking search engines on behalf of Eric, in the US, not so cool.
Europe doesn't have free speech, so, no problem.

~~~
askmike
> Europe doesn't have free speech, so, no problem.

Europe definitely has free speech (all the countries I know of anyway, Europe
has a lot of different countries). There is just a different definition of
what exactly is free speech and what is something else (some racist things are
not considered free speech).

~~~
greglindahl
RTBF is Europe-wide, you have courts that make precedents like that which are
Europe-wide even though Europe has a lot of different countries.

And sure, I'm sure you'd call what you have free speech. But that's not the
way the US defines it.

~~~
askmike
> RTBF is Europe-wide

Nope it's not, it's an EU law and EU !== Europe. Europe has 51 countries while
the EU only has 28. Just like Mexico is not in the US, a ton of European
countries are not in the EU.

------
danShumway
I see a lot of people claim that this is just about having information at the
top of a search result, and I agree that's better than outright censorship.

But, I still take some small amount of umbrage with people claiming that
nothing is being erased, just people's ability to find it. I think that's a
very blurry line to draw - the idea the it's OK for information to exist
somewhere in the void, but making it _too easy to access_ is not OK.

The intent behind rules like this is to make it much harder for people to
access information. If Google isn't the Internet, and delisting won't suppress
speech, then what value is the law? If Google is the Internet, and delisting
from their site will hide information from the public, then how is this not
censorship?

There's no point in getting myself delisted from Google unless I expect that
this will prevent most people from being able to find my information. People
search names on Google because they _want_ that information. The only way I
can see for GDPR to stay effective or valuable in hiding me from those people
is if it becomes a blanket ban on indexing or curation in general.

~~~
Hoagy
I agree with this. I am surprised that rather than trying to define itself as
journalistic, Google isn't trying to present itself as an archivist (I am
unaware if this has any legal meaning).

I wonder what would happen if an explicitly archival service like the Wayback
Machine got itself a state of the art search algorithm and became widely used
in casual search. Would it also be required to delist?

------
Heliosmaster
I see here a few comments criticizing the right to be forgotten, but I pose a
question a bit differently.

Let us assume somebody commits a crime. He goes to jail, he pays for it, as
society deems necessary.

A local newspaper reported it and now every time you google their name such an
article pops up. This makes every person they might do business with to
withdraw.

It seems to me the debt to society has been paid by going to jail, and yet
they keep paying by having the news of their mistake be very prominent.

What is the right course of action, in this case?

Note that the difference between traditional newspapers is their general
availability. Now the entire history is just a few clicks away, whereas with
paper you need to go look for it specifically to find it, so it's a LOT less
damaging.

What does HN think about this?

~~~
lightbyte
It sounds like the actual problem is

>This makes every person they might do business with to withdraw.

Hiding information from people sounds like a bandaid to the issue of people
being overly judgemental. Maybe we need to be more accepting to
rehabilitation.

~~~
Cacti
Maybe instead of relying on humans to suddently act differently than they ever
have in thousands of years, we could just remove the stupid link.

I mean, listen to yourself. Rather than an easy, technical solution, for a
very limited and well defined problem, you're proposing we instead just wait
until the billions upon billions of people on earth suddenly wise up, hit
nirvana, sing Kum ba yah, and _be less judgemental_? So that, what, a giant,
wealthy corporation isn't mildly bothered?

~~~
Sacho
But there is no law that is crafted for this "very limited and well defined
problem". "Right to be forgotten" goes much further than that. I can
tentatively agree that for your proposed situation, it's unfair enough to
former felons that it may require government intervention. Unfortunately,
there's just no legislation that is focused and limited in scope in this
regard; instead, the move is to broader, looser and vaguer laws like the GDPR.

If we have to consider the reality of the situation for felons, we must also
face the reality that they don't really seem to be the _end_ goal, but just a
story to placate worries about overregulation and censorship.

------
tomcart
The bbc publishes a monthly list of urls removed by google. It is pretty
instructive:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/83c19e58-e131-47...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/83c19e58-e131-47c9-ae7f-82d914974940)

------
baldfat
> ‘right to be forgotten’

I really think that hiding facts is a mistake. Yes someone made a bad mistake
why is it their right to have it removed from the internet? Now if there are
factually wrong then absolutely they should have the ability to have it
removed.

Things can legally be removed from a person's record like crimes committed by
minors but if someone's life was impacted are we going to remove the victims'
story for the sake of the offenders?

Imagine going to the library to read the old news papers and have excerpts
redacted and cut out. To me that is what people are trying to do.

This is changing our history like the horrible biographies of the 19th and
early 20th century where the hero of the biography was perfect and a superhero
due to moral perfectionism, but now it is seeked after by individual's
regardless to their poor choices and actions.

~~~
Heliosmaster
A search engine != the internet.

It should not be removed from the internet, but it should be removed from
google. It's not the same thing as dealing with paper newspaper. One you have
to go an explicitly look for the information and browse through them to get it
(and still it can escape your gaze). With google you just need to type name
and surname, and everything is at your fingertips.

~~~
BookmarkSaver
But how is it ok or reasonable to say "you are allowed to see this, but we're
going to make laws to make it arbitrarily hard to do".

Either it's removing public information (censorship), or it's this bizarre
stop-gap to allow people to conceal information while pretending they aren't
deleting it. There's not reasonable or principled system here. Just a
dangerous stop-gap measure where it seems like people are trying to delete
(censor) information under the guise of individual freedom ("we're just making
it harder").

I don't really buy into the middle-ground presented by this measure.

~~~
lloyddobbler
Agreed. Further along those lines, how does one reconcile the fact that Google
still powers search for a number of other entities (including some libraries,
academic institutions, etc)?

The "right to be forgotten", in that case, becomes the "right to erase
history."

------
PeterMikhailov
In a similar case, Russia's Evgeny Prigozhin kept suing Russian newspapers to
try to remove articles from the Internet about his corruption of the Russian
state.

[https://meduza.io/en/feature/2016/06/13/evgeny-prigozhin-
s-r...](https://meduza.io/en/feature/2016/06/13/evgeny-prigozhin-s-right-to-
be-forgotten)

------
lightbyte
"Right to be forgotten" just sounds so ridiculous to me, how did this become a
thing? Are people going to want to burn the history books at their local
library next because it contains some information they don't like reminding
people of?

~~~
kodablah
> Are people going to want to burn the history books at their local library
> next because it contains some information they don't like reminding people
> of?

Nope, they want to burn the card catalog. Still wrong of course, but many
people think that because people can't be trusted to act reasonably on
historical, factual information they see about someone, they should legislate
instead. Laws become the answer to everyone's problems, education or accepting
the bad with the good in an age of transparency are just not options sadly.

------
lotu
Okay this quote at the top of the article irked me.

> Google has argued that it should be protected under an exception for
> journalism because it provides access to journalistic content. Even as a
> legal sleight of hand, the argument is quite a departure from Google’s
> customary efforts to present itself as a disinterested arbiter of
> information, a position that has become more untenable with time

Google was _forced_ to become an arbiter of information by the very law in
question. The EU could have set up a court system where you would sue the
government and lawyer would argue against you why the information was in fact
in the public interest and a judge would then decide the case. They didn’t do
this probally because it would be a expensive and leave the government getting
blamed when decisions are inevitably wrong/unpopular. Instead they forced
Google to do this in a shout of confidence that Google would act in the public
interest and not simply in the interest of resolving cases as quickly as
cheaply as possible. It is easy to imagine a alternative world with a diffrent
dominiat search engine that would allow information like corruption, histories
of abuse and neglect to be hidden from the public.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
These "right to be forgotten" laws are already being abused:

* German murderers sue for Wikipedia to remove their names from the page about their victim. [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13wiki.html?_r=0](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13wiki.html?_r=0)

* Russian oligarch sues Google and Yandex for linking to investigation about investigations of him and his businesses. [https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/putins-personal-chef-sue...](https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/putins-personal-chef-sues-yandex-and-google-over-search-result-links-53105)

* A doctor sues to remove negative patient reviews. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/10833894/Polit...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/10833894/Politician-paedophile-and-GP-claim-right-to-be-forgotten.html)

These laws will tip the balance of information away from the people and
towards the wealthy who will have the means to conduct extensive background
checks/research.

~~~
mxfh
The first one has little to do with the now implemented "right to be
forgotten". It's claims were based on long existing german personality law and
was actually struck down by the highest german court BGH in 2012 in favor of
freedom of information.

[http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/kriminalitaet/klage-...](http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/kriminalitaet/klage-
wegen-namensnennung-sedlmayr-moerder-scheitert-vor-dem-
bundesgerichtshof-11744093.html)

[https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/BGH-weist-Klage-
von-...](https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/BGH-weist-Klage-von-Sedlmayr-
Moerder-gegen-Internet-Artikel-ab-1570800.html)

------
firasd
I think part of the solution here is going to need to be social. We need to
move beyond the Gawker-like era where if there's an awkward photo of you out
there suddenly there's perpetual mass shaming about it. As we grow to know
more info about each other we need an increase in societal maturity.

~~~
return0
We need a "right to be forgiven" instead that would be a social thing, not
something a corporation or the government can control.

------
gressquel
I am usually a advocate for privacy and right to be forgotten but in this case
I am with Google. The criminals can easily erase their conviction and start
'scamming' victims again. Remember a time when I was looking for apartment and
I Googled the name of the owner only to find news articles about how he had
built 2 apartments inside one, even though they had no fire escape.

~~~
jacquesm
Criminals can not erase their conviction. At best they will be able to wipe
out your ability to find out about that conviction. If you want to know stuff
like that you'll have to do a background check and not everybody gets to do
background checks on everybody else for no particular reason. And that's a
good thing.

~~~
philipkglass
According to what gressquel posted, they _were_ doing a background check for a
particular reason. If you meant "if you want to know stuff like that you'll
have to do a background check _that costs money_ ," then the "no particular
reason" threshold for running a check depends strongly on the checker's
financial resources.

Whatever balance between right to privacy and right to knowledge is struck, it
should have uniform effects. The law shouldn't make it harder for a potential
tenant to check the background of an apartment complex owner than for the
owner to check the background of a potential tenant, even though in most cases
the owner will have more money.

~~~
jacquesm
A google search is not a background check.

~~~
lotu
Obviously not, the point is if you are poor and want to know if someone has a
history of scamming people do you want to not eat this week and be a formal
background check, or run a quick google search and not worry about where to
find food. They are diffrent products but they are used for the same purpose
many times.

------
MPhmW7zskHcnKg
When I was a child, I committed a crime.

They waited until just after my 18th birthday to charge me, and according to
UK law that means that my name etc. could be published. Most of the articles
get the details subtly wrong, and insinuate that I did much worse than what
actually occurred.

I believe, if I wanted to, I could exercise my right to be forgotten. But
what's the point? Google is not the only search engine out there, and there is
absolutely no way I could get _every_ search engine to comply. Anyone who
really wants to dig up my past would still be able to.

Despite the fact that, in theory, the right to be forgotten would benefit me
greatly, I think it needs to go. It's a complete waste of resources because it
can never be effectively enforced.

Ultimately, I've come to terms with the fact that my history isn't too much of
a bad thing. If someone doesn't want to do business with me because of it,
then I've just filtered out someone with superficial prejudices.

~~~
fucking_tragedy
Most people would agree that what you do as a child shouldn't be held against
you as an adult, provided you've learned from your mistake. I'd say that what
happened to you is a perversion of justice.

You've paired your sense of helplessness with a need for divine perfection to
reason away the purpose behind the right to be forgotten.

There are people who have been faced with injustice, who haven't succumbed to
letting it affect them forever. There are people who have paid their debt to
society and shouldn't have that perpetually held against them.

> Despite the fact that, in theory, the right to be forgotten would benefit me
> greatly, I think it needs to go. It's a complete waste of resources because
> it can never be effectively enforced.

There is no law that is completely, effectively enforced. Laws against murder
aren't effectively enforced, murder still happens all of the time. However,
laws allow public action to be taken and give recourse to victims.

> no way I could get every search engine to comply

There are a handful of search engines people use. If Google alone complied,
that would probably eliminate 90% of anyone who would ever search for you
online.

> Ultimately, I've come to terms with the fact that my history isn't too much
> of a bad thing. If someone doesn't want to do business with me because of
> it, then I've just filtered out someone with superficial prejudices.

In a way, you have the privilege of being able to filter out opportunities. A
few words in someone's history can effectively bar them from being hired or
finding a place to live, leaving them with little to no opportunity. About a
week ago, there was a post by an HN member about such a situation [1].

In the end, bills need to be paid and people need to eat. If someone has
dependents, like the guy above [1], they will suffer.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16708224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16708224)

------
intralizee
I think Google should consider how human-error prône we are and how society
suffers because of it. Everyone is slowly becoming dehumanized towards others
by errors and I’ve witnessed first hand how errors of others will ruin a
person; if they’re not clever enough to conquer the situation. Google should
put more resources into improving Human Resources and Law before getting all
uptight about removing what could be an error for a person but is impossible
to prove; with the lacking resources of today. Most cases are hearsay of
others and where a minoriy suffering by errors of the majority; the minority
has no real evidence to work it out. A person will likely crumble in bad
situations, unless educated in law and defense.

------
eptcyka
I'd rather live in a society that is capable of forgetting, accepting that
people can change and thus don't condemn others for their past. If we
eliminate skeletons in our wardrobes, any little speckle on one's past will be
devastating.

------
dhimes
In the early days of Google they had a press conference. I don't recall the
specifics- probably about when they announced having indexed 1B pages on the
web. There was concern about privacy. To make a point, a reporter started
reading some of the personal things she had learned about said Google CEO(s)
from their search engine.

Those pages (sorry) were not available in Google the following day.

So, yeah. They know how important it is personally. First hand.

------
krick
I don't really have an opinion on the 'right to be forgotten' here, but it
surprises me to say the least, how everything is justified by being
'journalistic', as if there's something intrinsically good about that. As if
there are ordinary people, who, of course, must behave appropriately, respect
privacy and others' feelings — and are actually legally enforced to do so. And
then there are 'journalists', who can do whatever they want, harass anybody,
and it's all good and well and the 'freedom of speech' — not they only can do
so, but it's actually moral. Spy on everyone, spread lies and disinformation,
take your photos without your consent, tell everyone your secrets, wash your
dirty clothes of 20 years old on public — even if these dirty clothes are not
actually your fault and haunt all your life you as it is. Just… come on.

------
nitwit005
Europe wrote the law in such a way that Google effectively has to act like a
court, even though that's obviously problematic, and it has no interest in
doing so.

Sure, this seems a bit dubious, but they weren't exactly given a lot of
guidance for handle these requests. I suspect they'd actually appreciate court
rulings clarifying things.

------
nraynaud
Journalistic? Like an "editor of content"? That's something that will
backfire.

There is no escaping that google is the author and editor of an algorithm and
that it chooses to remove things from the index for a variety of reasons, so I
don't think it's unfair to have laws that try to regulate the list of
exclusion.

------
briandear
So this is a right for Google to not show unflattering results but not about a
publishers right to publish unfavorable content?

Is this not blaming the card catalog for the content of a book?

If the information is true, than how can we argue it should be hidden? If it
is false, then that’s a libel case against the publisher of the false
information — not the indexer.

If someone wants to be forgotten, they should be addressing the publisher, not
the indexer.

The precedent of removing factual information from discovery is a dangerous
one. It would seem like existing libel laws ought to cover cases where false
information persists. Should a newspaper delete old content just because
“people change?” That’s just crazy.

------
kodablah
I look forward to the day when data can be distributed and become
signed/immutable but still indexed. At least then we'll be forced to deal with
educating people on how to react to information instead of restricting/de-
indexing it. For some it will be unfortunate that they can't put blinders on
people like they could back when humans curated content retroactively, and for
others it can give them comfort that those in power lose that same ability
(especially wrt themselves) compared to those not in power.

------
sseth
The "right to be forgotten" is always going to be fraught. We are talking of a
balance between competing rights of freedom of speech and privacy, and usually
such finely balanced decisions are what the judicial system is for.

But large platforms like Google and Facebook have become like "countries" in
themselves. People are earning their livelihoods, finding their friends and
loved ones, even committing crimes using these platforms. I think these
companies are being forced to build due process procedures so people have
recourse, not just for right to be forgotten, but also for other cases. And
this is being compounded by the use of AI algorithms which work in mysterious
ways even to their creators - an impersonal algorithm making decisions which
may destroy someone's life, or make someone a millionaire.

I wonder for example if the recent youtube attack could have been avoided if
the shooter had an independent forum where she could ask for explanation and
perhaps challenge the change in the ads policy which hurt her livelihood.
Nothing justifies violence, but we can learn lessons for the future.

We normally do not ask corporations to do such things, but for these mega-
internet giants maybe the normal rules are not enough. Perhaps as a start,
these companies should setup an ombudsman who can be approached when normal
corporate avenues fail.

------
ballenf
It seems strange to me that a New York based journalism institution didn't use
the plaintiffs real names. On what basis do you suppose they decided to honor
EU/English law?

~~~
bazzargh
On the basis that the information simply isn't available, it doesn't appear in
any court publications. eg a recent UK Supreme Court case was: 'R (on the
application of HC) (Appellant) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and
others (Respondents)'

HC here has her name witheld (R is 'Regina', ie the Crown). Exactly the same
thing happens in the US; eg in Roe v Wade, 'Roe' (a Jane Doe plaintiff) didn't
have her identity revealed until she herself told the press who she was
afterwards; the papers still use the pseudonym to describe it.

If the identity is known by other means the US press has been known to publish
- eg in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PJS_v_News_Group_Newspapers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PJS_v_News_Group_Newspapers),
it was a celebrity case and the story had been shopped round various papers,
with the result that US tabloids got the story and knew it would sell copies.
In this case there's no likely source for a leak.

------
kevsim
I find it strange that the beef is with Google and not with the sites Google
points at. Even if Google removes these search results, the articles are out
there, probably linked from some other articles on the same newspaper's site,
etc. This belief that removing from Google somehow makes it go away is odd.

~~~
z3t4
Google index means life or death for many companies. If you can not be found
on Google you basically don't exist.

------
danso
> _England’s Information Commissioner dismissed Google’s argument and said
> that journalism presupposes a process that includes human editorial
> decision-making, something that Google’s very algorithmic service does not
> do._

A side issue (not relevant to the mentioned court case, which deals with long-
ago crime convictions): Google News incorporates some human editorial
decision-making -- the whitelisting of domains. At some point courts will have
to make more difficult/less binary decisions about what constitutes human
editorial decision-making, which in modern times almost always involves a
mechanical algorithmic process. I guess we've run into this before when
deciding if bloggers enjoyed the same protections as traditional news
institutions.

------
fenwick67
> In its defense, Google has argued that it should be protected under an
> exception for journalism because it provides access to journalistic content

This is like saying a grocery store should be exempt because it sells
newspapers

~~~
notatoad
>This is like saying a grocery store should be exempt because it sells
newspapers

well, yes. or are you saying a grocery store should have to read every article
in every newspaper they sell to ensure it doesn't contain information that
legally should be forgotten?

------
gandutraveler
If the information exists in public domain and especially reported by news
agencies then why should this information be deleted. Why should it only apply
to Google and not other news agencies? EU should have more claroty on the law
and make Google delete it only if it applies to the entire internet.

Right to be forgotten should only apply to information provided by user
wanting to be forgotten. For all other cases, we should ask the court to allow
it to be forgotten from internet and not just google.

------
baud147258
I think for Google to be able to claim their search result are journalistic is
a little like them having the cake and eating it. They are already claiming
they are not responsible for the content they are distributing (because fake
news and all...), but they also claim that that content should be protected.

------
jmspring
It's curious how the company that dedicated itself to "do no evil" to gain
traction, has done evil and is seeking limits on this thing, yet in this
community still jumps up and down on Microsoft every time it can, yet (agreed
given it's past), hasn't shown the same level of social evil GOOG and FB have.

------
hot_brown_sammy
Permanence of data in an imperfect world where authority is interested in
punishment and oppression is dangerous.

------
drngdds
I'm glad the First Amendment keeps this nonsense from happening in the US.

~~~
decebalus1
Oh yes [1] how glad we all are. Also the fourth amendment which prevents the
Patriot Act from happening. So glad of that one! Also, you may grab a read
about the rest of the world. 'Free speech' is basically the norm.

[1] [https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/when-silence-
isnt-g...](https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/when-silence-isnt-golden-
how-gag-orders-can-evade-first-amendment-protections)

------
dcow
Good. The right to be forgotten is bullshit. That's not to say people don't
need to learn to be a little more flexible, tolerant, and human about things
people have done in the past, but deleting people's pasts is not the answer.
Don't judge until you've walked someone's shoes (unless they're in the
business of being public, then judge them but the right to be forgotten
doesn't apply in remotely the same way in that case), howabout?

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linkmotif
The right to be forgotten is very strange to me. We all have that right
already, it’s called oblivion and it’s inevitable.

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ggg9990
In the midst of all this, one concrete action you can take is to give your
kids common names that are hard to Google.

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j45
Disappointing to hear this with the "do no evil" ethos of Google.

Organizing all of the world's information is a great goal, but blurring the
boundaries between personal, private information is another thing.

If Google is journalistic:

\- Does Google know the difference between journalism and opinion/editorial
content?

\- Can standards of external journalistic integrity be applied to Google?

The majority of content online is OpEd and not subjective.

~~~
neolefty
Here's a report from Google with some stats about what was requested and what
was removed:

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H4MKNwf5MgeztG7OnJRnl3ym3gI...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H4MKNwf5MgeztG7OnJRnl3ym3gIT3HUK/view)

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jakelarkin
eventually we just need to accept that a much greater depth of history is
index searchable and adjust our actions, attitudes & judgments accordingly.
Enshrining the old ways in rigid laws and bureaucracy is not going to work.

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berg01
What the fuck. There is nothing journalistic about their compulsive instinct
to archive everything (and to spend _a lot_ of money on enabling not just
crawling the web, but rather.. pretty much everything.)

This would be like like giving some average reddit.com/datahoarder/ person a
right to be forgotten, except that particular person happened have to crawl
pretty much the entire world and probably knows enough to get 90% of the
global population to get fired, if it wanted to.

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alexnewman
I also declare myself a journalist. Thus I will keep records on everyone!

