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Maybe it's the European in me but I think the right to be forgotten is a good idea. Maybe not implemented the best, but the idea is sound. Say someone publishe

by orf 11y ago

Maybe it's the European in me but I think the right to be forgotten is a good idea. Maybe not implemented the best, but the idea is sound. Say someone published a book of peoples names and photos, complete with a description of the worst thing they have done during their lifetime. Sure, if your a doctor and you had some malpractice problems then it's a good thing that people can see that, but that time you got drunk and did something stupid that ended up in the news? Should that be the first thing that pops up when searching for you? Wouldn't that effect your employment prospects, your future? Is there any actual value to anyone in that being only a search away, other than it matches a particular query for your name? Google is being truthful in saying "this is a page that exists", but does it have to if the person the page is about has a legitimate reason for wanting it removed? The actual page still exists and can still be accessed so nobodies freedom of speech is being curtailed, this just gives citizens a right to say "maybe I don't want the fact I was wrongly convicted of something to follow me around forever". If anything this is giving citizens the freedom of speech to say "I want this to be forgotten, it's not me and shouldn't haunt me forever".

CamperBob2 11y ago
There are a lot of things that are good ideas, but that cannot be implemented without side effects that far outweigh any conceivable benefits to society. The "right to be forgotten" is one of them.
grahamburger 11y ago
The implementation really is the problem here. There just isn't a way that this can be implemented fairly. Or maybe there is, but trying to force it before we've found the right way to implement it just isn't working. Obviously it would be great if the Internet really could forget about the stupid things I've done. It would be even better (for me) if I could get everyone to literally forget about those things. Of course there's not an ethical way for me to get other people to literally forget things, and I think what GP is saying (and I agree) is that there's also not an ethical way to get the Internet to forget things.
- orf 11y ago
  > there's also not an ethical way to get the Internet to forget things. Sure there is, be lucky enough to have a common name (or one shared with a celebrity) and wait until enough news piles ontop of your bad news that nobody will ever find it.
  - grahamburger 11y ago
    Lol I guess that's true. Or start to use a nickname / middle name. Or even just do enough neutral / good things that get reported online that you bury your own bad stories.
jim-greer 11y ago
Do you think a customer service representative at Google should be the one making this decision? Seems like it should be a French official. There are hundreds of thousands to deal with though.
jim-greer 11y ago
Do you think a customer service representative at Google should be the one making this decision? Seems like it should be a French official. There are hundreds of thousands to deal with though.
andrewflnr 11y ago
> The actual page still exists and can still be accessed so nobodies freedom of speech is being curtailed... Google's freedom of speech is being curtailed. I thought I addressed this, but maybe not. Whether you think they're being jerks in exercising that right is entirely beside the point. > If anything this is giving citizens the freedom of speech to say "I want this to be forgotten..." A thousand times no. Freedom of speech is the right to literally say/write/etc "please let this be forgotten." You can say that until you're blue in the face and your fingers fall off. What is being discussed here, the government stepping in and forcing that request to be honored, is nothing more or less than censorship at the whim of the individual, or maybe a judge. This is not free speech, it is the exact opposite. And don't try to tell me, "but I said only legitimate reasons!" That's a fantasy. A legal mechanism like this is 100% guaranteed to be abused. The DMCA is supposed to only be used for legitimate reasons too. If we get used to Google being muzzled in this manner, eventually it will be common knowledge that you can't get the full truth on Google, so they will go elsewhere. Are you going to start filing "right to be forgotten" requests on everyone who mentions your malpractice suit except the original source? Every search engine, every aggregator built to get around precisely this law? Good luck if someone comes up with a peer-to-peer solution. How long do you really think it will be before someone gets upset that the source document is still available and demands that it be taken down too? Not long, if people start taking the right to be forgotten seriously. We're already getting used to the idea that our actions have chance of becoming widely known, and that most people have some kind of stupid gaffe in their history. If you let things progress naturally, we'll get more used to it and reach some relatively sane equilibrium. Censorship throws away the chance to reach that point.

by orf 11y ago

CamperBob2 11y ago

There are a lot of things that are good ideas, but that cannot be implemented without side effects that far outweigh any conceivable benefits to society. The "right to be forgotten" is one of them.

grahamburger 11y ago

The implementation really is the problem here. There just isn't a way that this can be implemented fairly. Or maybe there is, but trying to force it before we've found the right way to implement it just isn't working. Obviously it would be great if the Internet really could forget about the stupid things I've done. It would be even better (for me) if I could get everyone to literally forget about those things. Of course there's not an ethical way for me to get other people to literally forget things, and I think what GP is saying (and I agree) is that there's also not an ethical way to get the Internet to forget things.

orf 11y ago
> there's also not an ethical way to get the Internet to forget things. Sure there is, be lucky enough to have a common name (or one shared with a celebrity) and wait until enough news piles ontop of your bad news that nobody will ever find it.
- grahamburger 11y ago
  Lol I guess that's true. Or start to use a nickname / middle name. Or even just do enough neutral / good things that get reported online that you bury your own bad stories.

jim-greer 11y ago

Do you think a customer service representative at Google should be the one making this decision? Seems like it should be a French official. There are hundreds of thousands to deal with though.

jim-greer 11y ago

Do you think a customer service representative at Google should be the one making this decision? Seems like it should be a French official. There are hundreds of thousands to deal with though.

andrewflnr 11y ago

> The actual page still exists and can still be accessed so nobodies freedom of speech is being curtailed... Google's freedom of speech is being curtailed. I thought I addressed this, but maybe not. Whether you think they're being jerks in exercising that right is entirely beside the point. > If anything this is giving citizens the freedom of speech to say "I want this to be forgotten..." A thousand times no. Freedom of speech is the right to literally say/write/etc "please let this be forgotten." You can say that until you're blue in the face and your fingers fall off. What is being discussed here, the government stepping in and forcing that request to be honored, is nothing more or less than censorship at the whim of the individual, or maybe a judge. This is not free speech, it is the exact opposite. And don't try to tell me, "but I said only legitimate reasons!" That's a fantasy. A legal mechanism like this is 100% guaranteed to be abused. The DMCA is supposed to only be used for legitimate reasons too. If we get used to Google being muzzled in this manner, eventually it will be common knowledge that you can't get the full truth on Google, so they will go elsewhere. Are you going to start filing "right to be forgotten" requests on everyone who mentions your malpractice suit except the original source? Every search engine, every aggregator built to get around precisely this law? Good luck if someone comes up with a peer-to-peer solution. How long do you really think it will be before someone gets upset that the source document is still available and demands that it be taken down too? Not long, if people start taking the right to be forgotten seriously. We're already getting used to the idea that our actions have chance of becoming widely known, and that most people have some kind of stupid gaffe in their history. If you let things progress naturally, we'll get more used to it and reach some relatively sane equilibrium. Censorship throws away the chance to reach that point.