11 ms·

Cleveland.com’s ‘right to be forgotten’ removes names from some crime stories

71 points by danso 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
nimbius 8y ago
this is important in the united states, as the criminal justice system is often used as a blacklist. Once convicted of a DUI or drug possession, this criminal record can be used to bar employment, rescind voting rights, and legally practice housing discrimination. American criminal justice is often a precursor for lasting biblical retribution. For example, sex offenders are often branded with scarlet letter for life even after having been incarcerated and released, presumably rehabilitated and having paid restitution to society. Criminal records are made public and posted to websites. disclosure is often required by law for prior felons.
- Forbo 8y ago
  Even more so than the sex offender registry, I think US news reporting is more problematic. I wish the US were more like Germany (I think?) in the regard that they don't identify people by name until conviction. By that time, there's less interest in sensationalizing a story.
  - specialist 8y ago
    I strongly support this strategy. It'd reduce both witchhunts and copycats.
  - donatj 8y ago
    I wasn't aware Germany did that, but that is great. Right now an accusation can ruin your life even if later corrected. It's not how society should function.
  - jfim 8y ago
    It's definitely a cultural thing in the US to identify and show people that have purportedly committed crimes prior to their conviction. This article shows a Canadian perspective on how France and the US looked at the media during the DSK affair a while ago: https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2011/05/20/dominique_strausskahns_walk_of_shame.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2011/05/20/dominique_st... You can see how the different perspectives clash.
  - Thiez 8y ago
    In the Netherlands it is customary (but not mandatory) for the media to include only the first letter of the last name for people who are not yet convicted. So when John Smith is in the news as the prime suspect of a murder, he will be referred to as John S. There are some exceptions, e.g. when someone is already a public figure, or when someone actually seeks the media attention. Sometimes the last-name omission looks a bit silly because many other countries (such as the USA) will publish the full name, so for high profile cases one can generally find the full names just by searching online. That said the system works pretty well because people generally don't bother looking up the full names.
- 794CD01 8y ago
  Your criticism is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. The US prison system is not intended to rehabilitate anyone, and does not do so. Usually, criminals are even worse when they are released due to the time they've spent with other hardened criminals, being abused, forming criminal connections, and learning how to do crime more effectively. As a result, it's perfectly rational to track those people and be wary of them. The restitution angle is at least an argument, but treating the system as transactional in the sense that you break the balance by committing a crime then pay it back through slave work in jail is perhaps one of the few ways to make the system even more dysfunctional than it already is.
  - BeetleB 8y ago
    >Your criticism is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. The US prison system is not intended to rehabilitate anyone, Depends on your definition of rehabilitate. From the Bureau of Prisons web site: >We protect public safety by ensuring that federal offenders serve their sentences of imprisonment in facilities that are safe, humane, cost-efficient, and appropriately secure, and provide reentry programming to ensure their successful return to the community >As a result, it's perfectly rational to track those people and be wary of them. If you agree with the premise that jails are making criminals even worse, the more rational answer would be not to send them there to begin with, right? After all, if you put people in jail and release them, you are making society worse off. It would be more rational to keep them in prison forever. I think the most rational approach, though, is to fix the prison system and provide proper rehabilitation. Accepting that we incarcerate people, and release them in a way that makes the public unsafe, is a poor option. >but treating the system as transactional in the sense that you break the balance by committing a crime then pay it back through slave work in jail is perhaps one of the few ways to make the system even more dysfunctional than it already is. This is a strawman - no one here is suggesting slave work, or even any work, in jail as a measure of rehabilitation.
- ronnier 8y ago
  > Once convicted of a DUI or drug possession, this criminal record can be used to bar employment, rescind voting rights, and legally practice housing discrimination. And Canada will not let you enter their country if you have a DUI in the US.
  - slededit 8y ago
    It’s the Canadian equivalent of a felony. The US will bar you for any crimes which are a felony there as well. The surprise is that a first time offense is usually a misdemeanor in the US. In Canada the “misdemeanor” limit is .05%.
comyesa 8y ago
Rehabilitation doesn't always work. I doubt a sexual degenerate can be "cured". It's okay if they stay in prison just to be punished and are taken apart from society. It's okay if they can never be around children.
- Forbo 8y ago
  "The evidence suggests otherwise. Sex crimes researchers R. Karl Hanson and Kelly E. Morton-Bourgon of Public Safety Canada conducted a large-scale meta-analysis (quantitative review) of recidivism rates among adult sex offenders. They found a rate of 14 percent over a period averaging five to six years. Recidivism rates increased over time, reaching 24 percent by 15 years. The figures are clearly out of alignment with the public’s more dire expectations." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/misunderstood-crimes/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/misunderstood-cri...
  - thefreeman 8y ago
    Sorry but 25% of offenders committing another sex crime in the next 15 years more then enough for me to agree with the fact that they need to be identified and tracked.
    - Forbo 8y ago
      And 75% of them learning their lesson should be treated the same as those that don't? Identification and tracking of them is doing nothing to prevent them from re-offending.
    - matt4077 8y ago
      It's far below the rate overall, which is 60%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recidivism#Recidivism_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recidivism#Recidivism_rates There's also the problem that stigmatisation helps more or less no one, because it's unlikely that parents can (or should) effectively supervise their children 24/7. And even if they did, it may protect their children at the cost of others, leaving the overall rate of these crimes unchanged. To use an example with less emotional baggage: "Watch out for terrorists!" is a similarly useless warning.
mc32 8y ago
I’d like to see a codified system where elsctronic docs and records must have timestamps and certain kinds of content must get “forgotten” de-indexed, over time. Midemeanor mentions get de-indexed afer x-years, felonies y-years, murders and the sort, never. Obviously this would require refinement. That said, someone could resurrect one of these records and reset the clock, but being derivative, the click would have to run much faster. Also it should not be automated (as that would subvert the while idea). However, in practice this msy be unworkable without draconian enforcement.
- specialist 8y ago
  Huh. Good suggestion. Having worked with both voter privacy and medical records, my observation is that most proposals are more aspirational than practical. If you have any notions how to implement right to be forgotten, I'm all ears. From the hip, I'd start with Translucent Database strategies, where individual records and fields are hashed & encrypted in place. Like a proper password vault. Throw away the encryption key and the data becomes inaccessible. In contrast, I've advocated temporal privacy in the opposite direction. Enforced secrecy for a time period. Like with voting records and health metrics. Based on the notions that crypto has a shelf-life and after the fact auditability (transparency) is a public benefit. It'd be interesting if these two notions could be generalized.
- cortesoft 8y ago
  Not even sure how draconian enforcement would work, unless you forced every country to do the same. I could just set up a service that makes a copy of every document/record that is set to be deleted, and host it in a country that doesn't have that rule.
  - true_religion 8y ago
    You could do that, and US lawmakers will likely get lobbied to just block your site. Which is fair.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
hirundo 8y ago
The ‘right to be forgotten’ is backwards. Much better would be a 'right to remember'. The right to be forgotten is a positive right, in that it requires other people to take action (e.g. delist a story from Google) to fulfill it. A right to remember would be a negative right. Like a freedom of the press doesn't require the government to subsidize a printing press or equivalent, a right to remember would just mean that the state can't compel anyone to delist a story, etc. Positive rights are more open to abuse, and better serve the centralization of power. A right to be forgotten cannot be applied without infringing on someone else's right to speak about what must be forgotten, as in the case of forcing Google to delist something. A right to remember only infringes on the very dubious "right" to control someone else's speech and/or memory prosthetics, e.g search engines.
- qntty 8y ago
  How would that accomplish the same thing? That's like saying that you don't like that a "right to an education" is a positive right so it should instead be the "right to be ignorant". Either you think that people should be able to move on and be forgotten or you don't. Deciding between positive and negative rights is just a matter of strategy.
- drawnwren 8y ago
  At first glance, this seems like a solid argument. However, there are plenty of positive rights that we agree on. The right to an education is a positive right (while we disagree over this after high school, I don't think anyone is saying children don't deserve this). How about the right to personal safety? Sometimes it's negative, but it can be positive when dealing with negligence. Overall, I agree on the surface with your positive/negative distinction but I'm not sure the world works this way in practice.
- matt4077 8y ago
  Apart from the SVM-like attempt to find some strange characteristics that separate the rights you happen to like from those you don't, I fail to see how this little tale relates to a private publisher setting its own policy.
- notafraudster 8y ago
nostromo 8y ago
An additional solution would be to stop publishing names for suspects entirely. Wait until the person is convicted to release the name.
- cronix 8y ago
  They have already been prosecuted and convicted. You can't "expunge" a crime off your criminal record unless you've been convicted of it. It's ok to publish people who have been convicted of a crime. That's public info. It's NOT ok, to still have it published when it's expunged from your record. The article is specifically discussing expunged crimes.
  - danso 8y ago
    That said, u/nostromo raises a good tangent. When I worked at my college newspaper, which was before Google had become so dominant a fact of day-to-day life, there was no second thought about publishing the name, age, and address of suspects in the police blotter (the daily listing of suspects arrested, mostly for public intox). The age and address were part of the arrest record, and important to disambiguate between similarly-named people. Back then, it hadn't yet occurred to society how Google effectively made info permanently, globally, and efficiently searchable. Nowadays, I think the status quo for college newspapers is to not print names: https://www.poynter.org/news/college-papers-dropping-arrestee-names-crime-blotters https://www.poynter.org/news/college-papers-dropping-arreste...
cronix 8y ago
> the site would remove names from older stories if their records were expunged. That seems reasonable. If the record is "expunged", you can legally say that you have not been convicted of that crime. So it can't legally be used against you (like on a job application)... so references to that crime should be removed from public view.
- pc86 8y ago
  Yes, but a news article saying you were arrested for something still happened, and is still factual.
  - cronix 8y ago
    The problem is you can legally say you were never convicted of that crime if it's expunged. If a background check is performed, it will not show up on your record, which will be contradictory if it's still in a newspaper article (or some other public source). It's a catch-22. An employer cannot legally use it against you. If they see it in print they can discriminate (illegally, but who would know) against you. If you can legally claim "I have not been convicted of a crime," then it shouldn't be in print showing you have been. It should go away, just like the criminal record, and just like if someone were to conduct a bg check.
    - pc86 8y ago
      I'm talking about the arrest, plenty of news sources, especially local ones, will have an article saying so-and-so was arrested of such-and-such crime. Even if you're found not guilty through a trial the news article saying you were arrested will remain (because you were arrested). It would be the same after an expungement, articles citing the arrest can likely remain based on the fact that even if you were legally not convicted, you were still legally arrested (unless expungements cover that as well).
    - paxys 8y ago
      You don't see a problem that the government is infringing on my right to post literal facts online?
reaperducer 8y ago
I wonder what would happen if a world leader, like the president of France, invoked his EU-given right to be forgotten. Imagine the chaos, not only on web sites, but across all of society. Would schoolbooks have to be re-written? What would teachers say when children asked who the xth president of the republic was?
- matt4077 8y ago
  The President of France does not have a right to be forgotten, as people of public interest are exempt.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    people of public interest are exempt Sounds like a new badge of honor for minor "celebrities" and people who are self-important. Are there codified specifications for "people of public interest?"
justin66 8y ago
This is not the strangest self-censorship cleveland.com has engaged in. The strangest I'm aware of is publishing otherwise full physical descriptions of wanted criminal suspects while omitting their race.
- kenjackson 8y ago
  If you have a full physical description then isn’t race redundant?
  - oh_sigh 8y ago
    I'm guessing they meant traits like hair color, eye color, height, distinguishing tattoos or marks, gender, but not skin color.
    - justin66 8y ago
      Precisely. Hence my use of the phrase "otherwise full physical descriptions." cleveland.com meant well and thought that this omission would help fix a problem they had, a high volume of blatantly racist postings in the largely unmoderated comments section of their paper in reaction to stories about crime. This solution did not work. It's as if racists aren't driven by sober and precise readings of the newspaper text, or something...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- danso 8y ago
  Do you have examples? Many media outlets have a policy of not including race unless there are n (usually 5-7) other physical descriptors.
  - justin66 8y ago
    > Do you have examples? I do not possess any examples. The policy is described in a rather facile way here, however: https://www.cleveland.com/readers/index.ssf/2014/07/the_complex_issue_of_identifyi.html https://www.cleveland.com/readers/index.ssf/2014/07/the_comp... Possibly the policy has changed recently, I don't read cleveland.com much anymore. (I don't think much of the author of that article or the paper's senior editorial staff, for a lot of mostly unrelated reasons) > Many media outlets have a policy of not including race unless there are n (usually 5-7) other physical descriptors. That sounds about right, I guess. In addition to skin color I'd expect an eyewitness with a decent view of a crime to describe - although not necessarily to recall correctly! - build, height, gender, hair color, and clothing. Some of the other common identifying factors (voice, eye color, gait, scars and tattoos, etc.) seem like they might be a bit of stretch.
jawns 8y ago
Former news editor here. Perhaps the biggest danger in this and other similar policies is not how it is applied today -- removing the names of people accused of minor crimes that have had their records expunged seems like a compassionate policy, given the effects it can have on things like employment prospects -- but in how it may be applied in the future. The idea that a newspaper archive is a collection of living documents, capable of being amended, rather than fixed snapshots of the past, is a fundamental shift. My concern is that down the line, more alterations will be permitted to be made, and potentially for less reasonable reasons, and then it's only a matter of time before archival information cannot be trusted, because there may be no way to determine what, if anything, has changed. That didn't used to be the case. When print copies of newspapers were used for library archives, it was practically impossible to alter all extant hard copies. But nowadays, unless this content gets indexed and preserved by numerous outside entities, it would be very easy for a newspaper to silently modify its own archives. I would be more comfortable if the newspaper included, as part of its policy, a requirement that a versioning ledger be published along with any altered archival stories, such as: * On 2018-10-19, this story was edited to remove the name of the suspect, under our "Right to Be Forgotten" policy. A copy of the original story is available for inspection at our office. That, at least, would allow people perusing the archives to know whether a story had been altered long after publication, and it would give people who really need the information to acquire it (albeit not easily).
- smrq 8y ago
  Paranoid response: if such a versioning ledger were to exist, how could you trust it? The feasibility problem still remains (it is feasible to alter archives that were formerly infeasible) and you now rely on trust that (1) all alterations are accompanied by a versioning notice, and (2) the summary presented in the notice is accurate and complete.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >Paranoid response: if such a versioning ledger were to exist, how could you trust it? Blockchain to the rescue (for real this time, I think, I'm not an expert or a blockchain fanboy). A publicly ledger that anyone can verify hasn't been tampered with is the whole point.
qubax 8y ago
So strange to see so many people celebrating 1984 style censorship. What the hell is "right to be forgotten". That isn't a right. Media gets to be less and less reliable and less truthful. If people want to be "forgotten", let them change their name/identity.
jordanthoms 8y ago
In New Zealand we have strong name suppression laws - if the court orders it, a defendants name cannot be published in any media (even a tweet naming the person would be illegal, and they do prosecute). AFAIK, in most cases you can still go attend the hearing in the court and see who the defendant is - so it's not really secret, but difficult to find out without going to some effort. The theory behind it is that the public shaming (particularly for public figures) from being named would be a punishment, and you shouldn't be punished for a crime without having been found guilty. There's been quite a few high profile abuse cases with this recently where rumours spread around around which 'high profile sportsman' it is. These days with blogs and social media it usually just turns into a rumor mill, and someone outside NZ jurisdiction can name the person legally. It's also a pretty clear violation of free speech, and judges seem to be very willing to give name suppression, and sometimes maintain it in place even if there is a plea deal and the person is convicted - There's a solid argument that it results in abusers being back out in the public, without people even being warned. So it's not exactly my favourite bit of NZ law :)

71 points by danso 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

this is important in the united states, as the criminal justice system is often used as a blacklist. Once convicted of a DUI or drug possession, this criminal record can be used to bar employment, rescind voting rights, and legally practice housing discrimination. American criminal justice is often a precursor for lasting biblical retribution. For example, sex offenders are often branded with scarlet letter for life even after having been incarcerated and released, presumably rehabilitated and having paid restitution to society. Criminal records are made public and posted to websites. disclosure is often required by law for prior felons.

Forbo 8y ago
Even more so than the sex offender registry, I think US news reporting is more problematic. I wish the US were more like Germany (I think?) in the regard that they don't identify people by name until conviction. By that time, there's less interest in sensationalizing a story.
- specialist 8y ago
  I strongly support this strategy. It'd reduce both witchhunts and copycats.
- donatj 8y ago
  I wasn't aware Germany did that, but that is great. Right now an accusation can ruin your life even if later corrected. It's not how society should function.
- jfim 8y ago
  It's definitely a cultural thing in the US to identify and show people that have purportedly committed crimes prior to their conviction. This article shows a Canadian perspective on how France and the US looked at the media during the DSK affair a while ago: https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2011/05/20/dominique_strausskahns_walk_of_shame.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2011/05/20/dominique_st... You can see how the different perspectives clash.
- Thiez 8y ago
  In the Netherlands it is customary (but not mandatory) for the media to include only the first letter of the last name for people who are not yet convicted. So when John Smith is in the news as the prime suspect of a murder, he will be referred to as John S. There are some exceptions, e.g. when someone is already a public figure, or when someone actually seeks the media attention. Sometimes the last-name omission looks a bit silly because many other countries (such as the USA) will publish the full name, so for high profile cases one can generally find the full names just by searching online. That said the system works pretty well because people generally don't bother looking up the full names.
794CD01 8y ago
Your criticism is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. The US prison system is not intended to rehabilitate anyone, and does not do so. Usually, criminals are even worse when they are released due to the time they've spent with other hardened criminals, being abused, forming criminal connections, and learning how to do crime more effectively. As a result, it's perfectly rational to track those people and be wary of them. The restitution angle is at least an argument, but treating the system as transactional in the sense that you break the balance by committing a crime then pay it back through slave work in jail is perhaps one of the few ways to make the system even more dysfunctional than it already is.
- BeetleB 8y ago
  >Your criticism is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. The US prison system is not intended to rehabilitate anyone, Depends on your definition of rehabilitate. From the Bureau of Prisons web site: >We protect public safety by ensuring that federal offenders serve their sentences of imprisonment in facilities that are safe, humane, cost-efficient, and appropriately secure, and provide reentry programming to ensure their successful return to the community >As a result, it's perfectly rational to track those people and be wary of them. If you agree with the premise that jails are making criminals even worse, the more rational answer would be not to send them there to begin with, right? After all, if you put people in jail and release them, you are making society worse off. It would be more rational to keep them in prison forever. I think the most rational approach, though, is to fix the prison system and provide proper rehabilitation. Accepting that we incarcerate people, and release them in a way that makes the public unsafe, is a poor option. >but treating the system as transactional in the sense that you break the balance by committing a crime then pay it back through slave work in jail is perhaps one of the few ways to make the system even more dysfunctional than it already is. This is a strawman - no one here is suggesting slave work, or even any work, in jail as a measure of rehabilitation.
ronnier 8y ago
> Once convicted of a DUI or drug possession, this criminal record can be used to bar employment, rescind voting rights, and legally practice housing discrimination. And Canada will not let you enter their country if you have a DUI in the US.
- slededit 8y ago
  It’s the Canadian equivalent of a felony. The US will bar you for any crimes which are a felony there as well. The surprise is that a first time offense is usually a misdemeanor in the US. In Canada the “misdemeanor” limit is .05%.

comyesa 8y ago

Rehabilitation doesn't always work. I doubt a sexual degenerate can be "cured". It's okay if they stay in prison just to be punished and are taken apart from society. It's okay if they can never be around children.

Forbo 8y ago
"The evidence suggests otherwise. Sex crimes researchers R. Karl Hanson and Kelly E. Morton-Bourgon of Public Safety Canada conducted a large-scale meta-analysis (quantitative review) of recidivism rates among adult sex offenders. They found a rate of 14 percent over a period averaging five to six years. Recidivism rates increased over time, reaching 24 percent by 15 years. The figures are clearly out of alignment with the public’s more dire expectations." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/misunderstood-crimes/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/misunderstood-cri...
- thefreeman 8y ago
  Sorry but 25% of offenders committing another sex crime in the next 15 years more then enough for me to agree with the fact that they need to be identified and tracked.
  - Forbo 8y ago
    And 75% of them learning their lesson should be treated the same as those that don't? Identification and tracking of them is doing nothing to prevent them from re-offending.
  - matt4077 8y ago
    It's far below the rate overall, which is 60%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recidivism#Recidivism_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recidivism#Recidivism_rates There's also the problem that stigmatisation helps more or less no one, because it's unlikely that parents can (or should) effectively supervise their children 24/7. And even if they did, it may protect their children at the cost of others, leaving the overall rate of these crimes unchanged. To use an example with less emotional baggage: "Watch out for terrorists!" is a similarly useless warning.

mc32 8y ago

I’d like to see a codified system where elsctronic docs and records must have timestamps and certain kinds of content must get “forgotten” de-indexed, over time. Midemeanor mentions get de-indexed afer x-years, felonies y-years, murders and the sort, never. Obviously this would require refinement. That said, someone could resurrect one of these records and reset the clock, but being derivative, the click would have to run much faster. Also it should not be automated (as that would subvert the while idea). However, in practice this msy be unworkable without draconian enforcement.

specialist 8y ago
Huh. Good suggestion. Having worked with both voter privacy and medical records, my observation is that most proposals are more aspirational than practical. If you have any notions how to implement right to be forgotten, I'm all ears. From the hip, I'd start with Translucent Database strategies, where individual records and fields are hashed & encrypted in place. Like a proper password vault. Throw away the encryption key and the data becomes inaccessible. In contrast, I've advocated temporal privacy in the opposite direction. Enforced secrecy for a time period. Like with voting records and health metrics. Based on the notions that crypto has a shelf-life and after the fact auditability (transparency) is a public benefit. It'd be interesting if these two notions could be generalized.
cortesoft 8y ago
Not even sure how draconian enforcement would work, unless you forced every country to do the same. I could just set up a service that makes a copy of every document/record that is set to be deleted, and host it in a country that doesn't have that rule.
- true_religion 8y ago
  You could do that, and US lawmakers will likely get lobbied to just block your site. Which is fair.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

hirundo 8y ago

The ‘right to be forgotten’ is backwards. Much better would be a 'right to remember'. The right to be forgotten is a positive right, in that it requires other people to take action (e.g. delist a story from Google) to fulfill it. A right to remember would be a negative right. Like a freedom of the press doesn't require the government to subsidize a printing press or equivalent, a right to remember would just mean that the state can't compel anyone to delist a story, etc. Positive rights are more open to abuse, and better serve the centralization of power. A right to be forgotten cannot be applied without infringing on someone else's right to speak about what must be forgotten, as in the case of forcing Google to delist something. A right to remember only infringes on the very dubious "right" to control someone else's speech and/or memory prosthetics, e.g search engines.

qntty 8y ago
How would that accomplish the same thing? That's like saying that you don't like that a "right to an education" is a positive right so it should instead be the "right to be ignorant". Either you think that people should be able to move on and be forgotten or you don't. Deciding between positive and negative rights is just a matter of strategy.
drawnwren 8y ago
At first glance, this seems like a solid argument. However, there are plenty of positive rights that we agree on. The right to an education is a positive right (while we disagree over this after high school, I don't think anyone is saying children don't deserve this). How about the right to personal safety? Sometimes it's negative, but it can be positive when dealing with negligence. Overall, I agree on the surface with your positive/negative distinction but I'm not sure the world works this way in practice.
matt4077 8y ago
Apart from the SVM-like attempt to find some strange characteristics that separate the rights you happen to like from those you don't, I fail to see how this little tale relates to a private publisher setting its own policy.
notafraudster 8y ago

nostromo 8y ago

An additional solution would be to stop publishing names for suspects entirely. Wait until the person is convicted to release the name.

cronix 8y ago
They have already been prosecuted and convicted. You can't "expunge" a crime off your criminal record unless you've been convicted of it. It's ok to publish people who have been convicted of a crime. That's public info. It's NOT ok, to still have it published when it's expunged from your record. The article is specifically discussing expunged crimes.
- danso 8y ago
  That said, u/nostromo raises a good tangent. When I worked at my college newspaper, which was before Google had become so dominant a fact of day-to-day life, there was no second thought about publishing the name, age, and address of suspects in the police blotter (the daily listing of suspects arrested, mostly for public intox). The age and address were part of the arrest record, and important to disambiguate between similarly-named people. Back then, it hadn't yet occurred to society how Google effectively made info permanently, globally, and efficiently searchable. Nowadays, I think the status quo for college newspapers is to not print names: https://www.poynter.org/news/college-papers-dropping-arrestee-names-crime-blotters https://www.poynter.org/news/college-papers-dropping-arreste...

cronix 8y ago

> the site would remove names from older stories if their records were expunged. That seems reasonable. If the record is "expunged", you can legally say that you have not been convicted of that crime. So it can't legally be used against you (like on a job application)... so references to that crime should be removed from public view.

pc86 8y ago
Yes, but a news article saying you were arrested for something still happened, and is still factual.
- cronix 8y ago
  The problem is you can legally say you were never convicted of that crime if it's expunged. If a background check is performed, it will not show up on your record, which will be contradictory if it's still in a newspaper article (or some other public source). It's a catch-22. An employer cannot legally use it against you. If they see it in print they can discriminate (illegally, but who would know) against you. If you can legally claim "I have not been convicted of a crime," then it shouldn't be in print showing you have been. It should go away, just like the criminal record, and just like if someone were to conduct a bg check.
  - pc86 8y ago
    I'm talking about the arrest, plenty of news sources, especially local ones, will have an article saying so-and-so was arrested of such-and-such crime. Even if you're found not guilty through a trial the news article saying you were arrested will remain (because you were arrested). It would be the same after an expungement, articles citing the arrest can likely remain based on the fact that even if you were legally not convicted, you were still legally arrested (unless expungements cover that as well).
  - paxys 8y ago
    You don't see a problem that the government is infringing on my right to post literal facts online?

reaperducer 8y ago

I wonder what would happen if a world leader, like the president of France, invoked his EU-given right to be forgotten. Imagine the chaos, not only on web sites, but across all of society. Would schoolbooks have to be re-written? What would teachers say when children asked who the xth president of the republic was?

matt4077 8y ago
The President of France does not have a right to be forgotten, as people of public interest are exempt.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  people of public interest are exempt Sounds like a new badge of honor for minor "celebrities" and people who are self-important. Are there codified specifications for "people of public interest?"

justin66 8y ago

This is not the strangest self-censorship cleveland.com has engaged in. The strangest I'm aware of is publishing otherwise full physical descriptions of wanted criminal suspects while omitting their race.

kenjackson 8y ago
If you have a full physical description then isn’t race redundant?
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  I'm guessing they meant traits like hair color, eye color, height, distinguishing tattoos or marks, gender, but not skin color.
  - justin66 8y ago
    Precisely. Hence my use of the phrase "otherwise full physical descriptions." cleveland.com meant well and thought that this omission would help fix a problem they had, a high volume of blatantly racist postings in the largely unmoderated comments section of their paper in reaction to stories about crime. This solution did not work. It's as if racists aren't driven by sober and precise readings of the newspaper text, or something...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
danso 8y ago
Do you have examples? Many media outlets have a policy of not including race unless there are n (usually 5-7) other physical descriptors.
- justin66 8y ago
  > Do you have examples? I do not possess any examples. The policy is described in a rather facile way here, however: https://www.cleveland.com/readers/index.ssf/2014/07/the_complex_issue_of_identifyi.html https://www.cleveland.com/readers/index.ssf/2014/07/the_comp... Possibly the policy has changed recently, I don't read cleveland.com much anymore. (I don't think much of the author of that article or the paper's senior editorial staff, for a lot of mostly unrelated reasons) > Many media outlets have a policy of not including race unless there are n (usually 5-7) other physical descriptors. That sounds about right, I guess. In addition to skin color I'd expect an eyewitness with a decent view of a crime to describe - although not necessarily to recall correctly! - build, height, gender, hair color, and clothing. Some of the other common identifying factors (voice, eye color, gait, scars and tattoos, etc.) seem like they might be a bit of stretch.

jawns 8y ago

Former news editor here. Perhaps the biggest danger in this and other similar policies is not how it is applied today -- removing the names of people accused of minor crimes that have had their records expunged seems like a compassionate policy, given the effects it can have on things like employment prospects -- but in how it may be applied in the future. The idea that a newspaper archive is a collection of living documents, capable of being amended, rather than fixed snapshots of the past, is a fundamental shift. My concern is that down the line, more alterations will be permitted to be made, and potentially for less reasonable reasons, and then it's only a matter of time before archival information cannot be trusted, because there may be no way to determine what, if anything, has changed. That didn't used to be the case. When print copies of newspapers were used for library archives, it was practically impossible to alter all extant hard copies. But nowadays, unless this content gets indexed and preserved by numerous outside entities, it would be very easy for a newspaper to silently modify its own archives. I would be more comfortable if the newspaper included, as part of its policy, a requirement that a versioning ledger be published along with any altered archival stories, such as: * On 2018-10-19, this story was edited to remove the name of the suspect, under our "Right to Be Forgotten" policy. A copy of the original story is available for inspection at our office. That, at least, would allow people perusing the archives to know whether a story had been altered long after publication, and it would give people who really need the information to acquire it (albeit not easily).

smrq 8y ago
Paranoid response: if such a versioning ledger were to exist, how could you trust it? The feasibility problem still remains (it is feasible to alter archives that were formerly infeasible) and you now rely on trust that (1) all alterations are accompanied by a versioning notice, and (2) the summary presented in the notice is accurate and complete.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >Paranoid response: if such a versioning ledger were to exist, how could you trust it? Blockchain to the rescue (for real this time, I think, I'm not an expert or a blockchain fanboy). A publicly ledger that anyone can verify hasn't been tampered with is the whole point.

qubax 8y ago

So strange to see so many people celebrating 1984 style censorship. What the hell is "right to be forgotten". That isn't a right. Media gets to be less and less reliable and less truthful. If people want to be "forgotten", let them change their name/identity.

jordanthoms 8y ago

In New Zealand we have strong name suppression laws - if the court orders it, a defendants name cannot be published in any media (even a tweet naming the person would be illegal, and they do prosecute). AFAIK, in most cases you can still go attend the hearing in the court and see who the defendant is - so it's not really secret, but difficult to find out without going to some effort. The theory behind it is that the public shaming (particularly for public figures) from being named would be a punishment, and you shouldn't be punished for a crime without having been found guilty. There's been quite a few high profile abuse cases with this recently where rumours spread around around which 'high profile sportsman' it is. These days with blogs and social media it usually just turns into a rumor mill, and someone outside NZ jurisdiction can name the person legally. It's also a pretty clear violation of free speech, and judges seem to be very willing to give name suppression, and sometimes maintain it in place even if there is a plea deal and the person is convicted - There's a solid argument that it results in abusers being back out in the public, without people even being warned. So it's not exactly my favourite bit of NZ law :)