4 ms·

Wow, a full retraction! I'm holding back on the kudos for NPR's editorial accountability until we get some context. The subject of that story was a hedge fund

by sqdbps 8y ago

Wow, a full retraction! I'm holding back on the kudos for NPR's editorial accountability until we get some context. The subject of that story was a hedge fund guy who didn't like the search results appearing for his name and the legal expenses that went into trying to change them, the piece was sympathetic to him and it was framed as a story about 'net privacy and the lack of regulation around it, but of course it wasn't about privacy it was about censorship, two concepts that are too often conflated nowadays what with publications falling all over themselves trying to extol EU regulations. The bottom line is that the so called "right to be forgotten" is as nonsensical an expression as it is a policy.

aidenn0 8y ago
Privacy requires some censorship. For example, a law that makes it illegal to take certain photos lacks teeth without a corresponding law that restricts publishing them.
- sqdbps 8y ago
  What's with all the "teeth" comments lately? who's pushing that agenda? We enjoy great constitutional protection to publish, unless it's copyright violation or you're revealing the allied plan for the normandy invasion no court will rule against you.
  - aidenn0 8y ago
    There typically aren't criminal charges, but civil penalties for publishing private information do abound. Whether or not that constitutes censorship is a matter of semantics.
    - sqdbps 8y ago
      A newspaper? fined for publishing? no such animal.
      - grigjd3 8y ago
        You must be unaware of what happens when photos of minors are published without parental consent.
        danso 8y ago
        What happens, exactly? In the U.S., AFAIK, there is no law preventing taking and publishing photos in the newspaper of minors or others in public spaces without prior consent.
        grigjd3 8y ago
        You can Google it, but school districts across the country have created bans on publishing pictures of students and those bans are enforceable by law.
      - aidenn0 8y ago
        Gawker?
djsumdog 8y ago
The EFF opposes the Right to be Forgotten. Some of their staff talked about it at Defcon two years back. In too many cases it simply leads to censorship. Freedom of speech, and its implementation by the Supreme Court in the US, makes this kind of legislation impossible. There are trade offs. Even if you can afford to get your criminal record expunged, data collection firms can still hold a copy of your record while it was public; so it can still show up on some background checks. We need to move away from the stigma of lifetime labels more than we need to be able to erase the past.
- Kelbit 8y ago
  I don't know why criminal record checks aren't treated similar to a credit bureau report. There is a legal time limit as to how long a bad debt or bankruptcy can stay on a report, as the people who wrote the credit reporting laws recognized that people can change. But a criminal record, even for a minor crime, lives forever unless explicitly expunged.
  - vkou 8y ago
    The problem with criminal records is that when they get expunged, they are only expunged from the government's records. Third-party aggregators and background check agencies can retain them. TRTBF is closer to regulating the latter.
    - Kelbit 8y ago
      Again, that would be similar to a credit report - here in Canada, for example, the bureaus are legally mandated to not report certain credit events after a prescribed amount of time. A similar rule could apply to background checks for employment, where certain less serious offenses have a "sunset period" where they fall off the report. The trouble with court records is that they are public, and for good reason (the justice system needs to be transparent). Unfortunately, the internet has made what used to be a process with a significant barrier to entry (a manual court records search) into a simple google search. The problem is exacerbated by extortionists who post mugshots (many of people who have their charges dropped) and charge a fee to remove them [1]. Regulation which enforces some level of right to be forgotten may be a solution. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mug_shot_publishing_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mug_shot_publishing_industry

by sqdbps 8y ago

aidenn0 8y ago

Privacy requires some censorship. For example, a law that makes it illegal to take certain photos lacks teeth without a corresponding law that restricts publishing them.

sqdbps 8y ago
What's with all the "teeth" comments lately? who's pushing that agenda? We enjoy great constitutional protection to publish, unless it's copyright violation or you're revealing the allied plan for the normandy invasion no court will rule against you.
- aidenn0 8y ago
  There typically aren't criminal charges, but civil penalties for publishing private information do abound. Whether or not that constitutes censorship is a matter of semantics.
  - sqdbps 8y ago
    A newspaper? fined for publishing? no such animal.
    - grigjd3 8y ago
      You must be unaware of what happens when photos of minors are published without parental consent.
      - danso 8y ago
        What happens, exactly? In the U.S., AFAIK, there is no law preventing taking and publishing photos in the newspaper of minors or others in public spaces without prior consent.
        grigjd3 8y ago
        You can Google it, but school districts across the country have created bans on publishing pictures of students and those bans are enforceable by law.
    - aidenn0 8y ago
      Gawker?

djsumdog 8y ago

The EFF opposes the Right to be Forgotten. Some of their staff talked about it at Defcon two years back. In too many cases it simply leads to censorship. Freedom of speech, and its implementation by the Supreme Court in the US, makes this kind of legislation impossible. There are trade offs. Even if you can afford to get your criminal record expunged, data collection firms can still hold a copy of your record while it was public; so it can still show up on some background checks. We need to move away from the stigma of lifetime labels more than we need to be able to erase the past.

Kelbit 8y ago
I don't know why criminal record checks aren't treated similar to a credit bureau report. There is a legal time limit as to how long a bad debt or bankruptcy can stay on a report, as the people who wrote the credit reporting laws recognized that people can change. But a criminal record, even for a minor crime, lives forever unless explicitly expunged.
- vkou 8y ago
  The problem with criminal records is that when they get expunged, they are only expunged from the government's records. Third-party aggregators and background check agencies can retain them. TRTBF is closer to regulating the latter.
  - Kelbit 8y ago
    Again, that would be similar to a credit report - here in Canada, for example, the bureaus are legally mandated to not report certain credit events after a prescribed amount of time. A similar rule could apply to background checks for employment, where certain less serious offenses have a "sunset period" where they fall off the report. The trouble with court records is that they are public, and for good reason (the justice system needs to be transparent). Unfortunately, the internet has made what used to be a process with a significant barrier to entry (a manual court records search) into a simple google search. The problem is exacerbated by extortionists who post mugshots (many of people who have their charges dropped) and charge a fee to remove them [1]. Regulation which enforces some level of right to be forgotten may be a solution. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mug_shot_publishing_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mug_shot_publishing_industry