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>it will protect someone who made a stupid mistake when they were younger having it haunt them for the rest of their careers or lives because it would otherwise

>it will protect someone who made a stupid mistake when they were younger having it haunt them for the rest of their careers or lives because it would otherwise have been the top hit when you google'd their name. I don't agree that this will protect anyone, or that they need to be protected in the first place. This is just hiding the problem that someone would judge you for whatever the content is. In my opinion the real solution here is to be more understanding to stupid things people have done in the past. Nobody is perfect, so why are you letting whatever that story on Google is affect your judgement of the person, assuming they learned from whatever it was.

bussierem 8y ago
>I don't agree that this will protect anyone, or that they need to be protected in the first place. This is just hiding the problem that someone would judge you for whatever the content is. You can't deny that the advent of social media has brought about a MUCH bigger problem of people getting fired, judged, or their lives ruined by stupid mistakes, posts online of a single comment they made, etc. These things aren't _new_ occurrences. People have always made stupid remarks; people have always done stupid things. The difference now is that it's trivially easy for me to go find some idiotic thing you did as a teenage that you've outgrown, and point to it as a way to ruin your life if I want to. All it would cost me is a little money to Google or Facebook. Back in the day, an attempt to truly ruin someone's life like this would require _digging_. If the person deserves it to happen to them (which is almost never), then people will go through the effort. But for the casual assholes who think it funny to SWAT someone or to call up embarrassing photos because that person called them a bad word, this barrier to entry would prevent them from doing something about it.
- gaius 8y ago
  Maybe one day a stint at Google (or Facebook or Uber) will be the red flag that impacts someone's career, "smart, but no regard for user's privacy, think we'll pass on this candidate". They are rapidly heading that way.
- drivingmenuts 8y ago
  By that same token, it's much easier to discover who the real idiots, bigots, assholes, etc. are, and then to apply appropriate social sanctions. It may suck for some people, but if we keep these people visible, then eventually maybe there will be fewer of them.
  - bringtheaction 8y ago
    Everyone can make stupid mistakes, and the amount of repercussions that you can end up with can be really small or really big regardless of the actual significance of what you said or what you did, because the world does not hold a single, consistent set of morals and opinions, nor are we good at passing judgement in a fair and consistent manner. Furthermore, context matters, but context is the first thing that gets lost online. Something that was said or done in one context can be perfectly fine in that context while at the same time that thing can be completely unacceptable in another context. We need not and we should not strive to keep a record of everything. It is important that we are able to forget. The world at large is not capable of ensuring due process. Real lives of innocent people are ruined. People are driven to suicide. All because the public formed a narrative about someone based on incomplete or otherwise inaccurate information. I wish for compassion and forgiveness.
  - gaius 8y ago
    real idiots, bigots, assholes, etc One tweet taken out of context we’ve seen many examples of is enough to ignite an epic shitstorm. No. You’re just proposing further destruction of public discourse and civility.
- thomasahle 8y ago
  > You can't deny that the advent of social media has brought about a MUCH bigger problem of people getting fired, judged, or their lives ruined by stupid mistakes, posts online of a single comment they made, etc. I only heard about this anecdotally. Do you have any data on such a huge increase in firings etc.? That would be quite interesting.
spadros 8y ago
That's not really the way business works, though. If one of your employees is the top result on Google for a dumb meme, it could be a liability to the business' image with clients. Hence, you don't take the risk of hiring them over someone else, even if the dumb memer is more qualified and a better fit overall. It simply wouldn't be worth the risk if there's other, less qualified but less risky, potential hires.
- philippejara 8y ago
  this is why anti discrimination laws exist, work on applying that.
  - spadros 8y ago
    There's good discrimination and bad discrimination from hiring perspective. Every company should discriminate their employees they want to hire, just not based on gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. There's no laws about discriminating against people with less experience or worse public images, and shouldn't be.
  - sincerely 8y ago
    anti discrimination laws are only relevant to protected classes in the states, as far as i know, and "did something stupid when they were younger" is not one
snoman 8y ago
> In my opinion the real solution here is to be more understanding to stupid things people have done in the past. If you think the real solution is to change the way the world thinks about, and judges, everyone else then you're being remarkably naive.
- Rescis 8y ago
  > If you think the real solution is to change the way the world thinks about, and judges, everyone else then you're being remarkably naive. This isn't a response, it's an insult. Two well educated, equally experienced people can come two two seperate conclusions, without one being "naive". Try and argue always assuming that the person your taking to is equally intelligent as you. Regardless, treating the symptom (Search engines displaying old news stories) of the problem (people judging others irrationally), without treating the problem itself will only cause equally bad, if not worse, issues to pop up elsewhere. The vast majority of times a state censors information, it ends up being harmful far past what was initially intended (the red scare/McCarthyism, DMCA, FOSTA, SOPA/PIPA, etc).

bussierem 8y ago

>I don't agree that this will protect anyone, or that they need to be protected in the first place. This is just hiding the problem that someone would judge you for whatever the content is. You can't deny that the advent of social media has brought about a MUCH bigger problem of people getting fired, judged, or their lives ruined by stupid mistakes, posts online of a single comment they made, etc. These things aren't _new_ occurrences. People have always made stupid remarks; people have always done stupid things. The difference now is that it's trivially easy for me to go find some idiotic thing you did as a teenage that you've outgrown, and point to it as a way to ruin your life if I want to. All it would cost me is a little money to Google or Facebook. Back in the day, an attempt to truly ruin someone's life like this would require _digging_. If the person deserves it to happen to them (which is almost never), then people will go through the effort. But for the casual assholes who think it funny to SWAT someone or to call up embarrassing photos because that person called them a bad word, this barrier to entry would prevent them from doing something about it.

gaius 8y ago
Maybe one day a stint at Google (or Facebook or Uber) will be the red flag that impacts someone's career, "smart, but no regard for user's privacy, think we'll pass on this candidate". They are rapidly heading that way.
drivingmenuts 8y ago
By that same token, it's much easier to discover who the real idiots, bigots, assholes, etc. are, and then to apply appropriate social sanctions. It may suck for some people, but if we keep these people visible, then eventually maybe there will be fewer of them.
- bringtheaction 8y ago
  Everyone can make stupid mistakes, and the amount of repercussions that you can end up with can be really small or really big regardless of the actual significance of what you said or what you did, because the world does not hold a single, consistent set of morals and opinions, nor are we good at passing judgement in a fair and consistent manner. Furthermore, context matters, but context is the first thing that gets lost online. Something that was said or done in one context can be perfectly fine in that context while at the same time that thing can be completely unacceptable in another context. We need not and we should not strive to keep a record of everything. It is important that we are able to forget. The world at large is not capable of ensuring due process. Real lives of innocent people are ruined. People are driven to suicide. All because the public formed a narrative about someone based on incomplete or otherwise inaccurate information. I wish for compassion and forgiveness.
- gaius 8y ago
  real idiots, bigots, assholes, etc One tweet taken out of context we’ve seen many examples of is enough to ignite an epic shitstorm. No. You’re just proposing further destruction of public discourse and civility.
thomasahle 8y ago
> You can't deny that the advent of social media has brought about a MUCH bigger problem of people getting fired, judged, or their lives ruined by stupid mistakes, posts online of a single comment they made, etc. I only heard about this anecdotally. Do you have any data on such a huge increase in firings etc.? That would be quite interesting.

spadros 8y ago

That's not really the way business works, though. If one of your employees is the top result on Google for a dumb meme, it could be a liability to the business' image with clients. Hence, you don't take the risk of hiring them over someone else, even if the dumb memer is more qualified and a better fit overall. It simply wouldn't be worth the risk if there's other, less qualified but less risky, potential hires.

philippejara 8y ago
this is why anti discrimination laws exist, work on applying that.
- spadros 8y ago
  There's good discrimination and bad discrimination from hiring perspective. Every company should discriminate their employees they want to hire, just not based on gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. There's no laws about discriminating against people with less experience or worse public images, and shouldn't be.
- sincerely 8y ago
  anti discrimination laws are only relevant to protected classes in the states, as far as i know, and "did something stupid when they were younger" is not one

snoman 8y ago

> In my opinion the real solution here is to be more understanding to stupid things people have done in the past. If you think the real solution is to change the way the world thinks about, and judges, everyone else then you're being remarkably naive.

Rescis 8y ago
> If you think the real solution is to change the way the world thinks about, and judges, everyone else then you're being remarkably naive. This isn't a response, it's an insult. Two well educated, equally experienced people can come two two seperate conclusions, without one being "naive". Try and argue always assuming that the person your taking to is equally intelligent as you. Regardless, treating the symptom (Search engines displaying old news stories) of the problem (people judging others irrationally), without treating the problem itself will only cause equally bad, if not worse, issues to pop up elsewhere. The vast majority of times a state censors information, it ends up being harmful far past what was initially intended (the red scare/McCarthyism, DMCA, FOSTA, SOPA/PIPA, etc).