4 ms·

In Europe this has been used by a lot of shady characters, including a drug dealing diplomatic visa buying individual in my country, to remove all mentions of w

In Europe this has been used by a lot of shady characters, including a drug dealing diplomatic visa buying individual in my country, to remove all mentions of whatever they can on Google. If I Google certain shady politicians and businessmen in my country vs DuckDuckGo the difference is stark.

voisin 3y ago
I would rather that right to be forgotten exist for that individual than not exist for anyone.
- Duwensatzaj 3y ago
  So you want Google to lie about reality and punish people who state the truth. I honestly can’t understand why.
  - eurticket 3y ago
    Because people shouldn't be judged on only the things that make it into search results. People are complex and not their mistakes. Once you serve a punishment you should be free to live & not forever branded a criminal.
  - squigz 3y ago
    Ahh yes... because Google would never do that before!
godelski 3y ago
I think this comes down to failure modes. No system is going to be perfect (you'd need an infinite amount of resources) so you need to design failure methods into it. The same is true about laws. In fact, I'd say that this is a big reasons "laws are meant to be broken" because the ecosystem is always changing and intent and implementation don't always align. Sometimes laws that seem very good are incredibly stupid in certain situations. This is why we should never rule by the letter of the law alone. There's a famous philosopher who came up with the (namesake) "Blackstone's Ratio". In short "It is better that a ten guilty men go free than a innocent man be stricken of his freedom." Blackstone influenced many of the early founders for countries in the Americas. So we have to ask ourselves, is this a thing that is beneficial to normal people. Is their right to be forgotten and their privacy important? You know people will always abuse this system, but is it better existing than if it hadn't? You will __always__ be able to point to abusers with __any__ system, so the truth is pointing at abusers itself isn't an argument against something. It needs more context. If the system is only used by abusers, then this is a problem. But terrorists and pedos use encryption (the common fingers being pointed) but so do normal people and it is highly valuable to normal people and their daily lives. Idk if removing your identity from Google is as important as that, but we should make sure we include more context than saying "people abuse it." That's a statement that will always be true.
derefr 3y ago
I would think that the idea here is that courts aren't currently intentionally giving out "and everyone remembers what they did forever" as part of most criminal sentences; that this type of indefinite scarlet lettering even after serving out a sentence was never an intent of criminal sentencing, but only became one as a byproduct of the judicial process due to court cases being public for auditability + the Internet durably remembering and indexing everything forever; and that if courts want to make an indefinite scarlet letter a part of (some) criminal sentences, then they should be doing so explicitly, as with "sex offender registries" and the like, so that that power can be applied only where democratically favored via legislation.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > this type of indefinite scarlet lettering even after serving out a sentence was never an intent of criminal sentencing Most people used to live in small towns and die within 100 miles of where they were born. If you got convicted of something, everybody knew.
  - derefr 3y ago
    Most people, yes. But criminals in particular used to escape this bubble of knowledge about who they were, by simply leaving town and starting over somewhere else. The possibility of doing this is one of the implicit bedrock assumptions of the design of most legal systems — but, due to everyone being able to look up "who you are and what you've done" everywhere you go, it's currently a broken assumption.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      You could just change your name, which seems like less of a burden than moving away from everything you've ever known. If you want to replicate the way it used to be then instead of trying to censor the world, just have the government give you a new ID and social security number when you change your name without publishing any record associating the new one with the old one.

voisin 3y ago

I would rather that right to be forgotten exist for that individual than not exist for anyone.

Duwensatzaj 3y ago
So you want Google to lie about reality and punish people who state the truth. I honestly can’t understand why.
- eurticket 3y ago
  Because people shouldn't be judged on only the things that make it into search results. People are complex and not their mistakes. Once you serve a punishment you should be free to live & not forever branded a criminal.
- squigz 3y ago
  Ahh yes... because Google would never do that before!

godelski 3y ago

I think this comes down to failure modes. No system is going to be perfect (you'd need an infinite amount of resources) so you need to design failure methods into it. The same is true about laws. In fact, I'd say that this is a big reasons "laws are meant to be broken" because the ecosystem is always changing and intent and implementation don't always align. Sometimes laws that seem very good are incredibly stupid in certain situations. This is why we should never rule by the letter of the law alone. There's a famous philosopher who came up with the (namesake) "Blackstone's Ratio". In short "It is better that a ten guilty men go free than a innocent man be stricken of his freedom." Blackstone influenced many of the early founders for countries in the Americas. So we have to ask ourselves, is this a thing that is beneficial to normal people. Is their right to be forgotten and their privacy important? You know people will always abuse this system, but is it better existing than if it hadn't? You will __always__ be able to point to abusers with __any__ system, so the truth is pointing at abusers itself isn't an argument against something. It needs more context. If the system is only used by abusers, then this is a problem. But terrorists and pedos use encryption (the common fingers being pointed) but so do normal people and it is highly valuable to normal people and their daily lives. Idk if removing your identity from Google is as important as that, but we should make sure we include more context than saying "people abuse it." That's a statement that will always be true.

derefr 3y ago

I would think that the idea here is that courts aren't currently intentionally giving out "and everyone remembers what they did forever" as part of most criminal sentences; that this type of indefinite scarlet lettering even after serving out a sentence was never an intent of criminal sentencing, but only became one as a byproduct of the judicial process due to court cases being public for auditability + the Internet durably remembering and indexing everything forever; and that if courts want to make an indefinite scarlet letter a part of (some) criminal sentences, then they should be doing so explicitly, as with "sex offender registries" and the like, so that that power can be applied only where democratically favored via legislation.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> this type of indefinite scarlet lettering even after serving out a sentence was never an intent of criminal sentencing Most people used to live in small towns and die within 100 miles of where they were born. If you got convicted of something, everybody knew.
- derefr 3y ago
  Most people, yes. But criminals in particular used to escape this bubble of knowledge about who they were, by simply leaving town and starting over somewhere else. The possibility of doing this is one of the implicit bedrock assumptions of the design of most legal systems — but, due to everyone being able to look up "who you are and what you've done" everywhere you go, it's currently a broken assumption.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    You could just change your name, which seems like less of a burden than moving away from everything you've ever known. If you want to replicate the way it used to be then instead of trying to censor the world, just have the government give you a new ID and social security number when you change your name without publishing any record associating the new one with the old one.