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This law is a very serious threat to freedom of the press, and freedom of speech in general. While it was (allegedly) introduced for reasons that seem quite rea

This law is a very serious threat to freedom of the press, and freedom of speech in general. While it was (allegedly) introduced for reasons that seem quite reasonable - avoiding unfair reputations in search results - it could quite validly be termed as "Right to censor criticism or true facts about yourself". Let's take high-profile person X who is found guilty of some serious crime, like sex offences. They have the money to hire a professional "reputation management" firm to find all stories in the press about them, and send takedown requests to Google, who is legally compelled to comply with those requests. The result is that information that is out there in the public domain, and that the public arguably has a right to know, is censored. There's a balance here between an individual's right to be protected against defamation, and the public's right to know. I don't think this law strikes the right balance. Furthermore, it ignores the technical and social nature of how the Internet works - the so called "Streisand effect" that repeatedly gets invoked whenever someone tries to suppress information. And as technology evolves and there's even more ways for information to become replicated (think peer-to-peer search engines and the like), it's like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

mattmanser 12y ago
There's no threat at all to either freedom of speech or the press. If the guardian publishes something, it will have its day in the sun. It just will eventually get removed, years afterwards. No press freedoms impinged, years after you've had your expressive speech. Whatever freedom that is, freedom of historical reports?, it's nothing to do with speech or press. If you want to re-report the information, you could, but it then would likely no longer be for the public good or interest, it would merely be vindictive. Unless, of course, you don't believe in redemption or rehabilitation.
- joeguilmette 12y ago
  It is most definitely censorship, even if delayed. For example, book burning is pretty hard to defend, and the books burned were likely written many months and years before they were burned.
- Afforess 12y ago
  It reminds me of 1984, where the party is perpetually rewriting history to fit their narrative. This is it, history is being rewritten. He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past
- cwyers 12y ago
  It is absolutely a restriction on freedom of speech to tell Google that it can't mention the very existence of various Guardian and BBC articles.
- GauntletWizard 12y ago
  Today's BBC article thoroughly disproves your point: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28130581 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28130581 Freedom of press is about creating a public record. When you remove that record from the public, when you censor the past of public discourse, you've infringed on free speech. Real discourse is full of [citation needed], and if you can preemptively remove those citations, there will be cheating.
  - Spearchucker 12y ago
    And yet those [citation needed]s haven't disappeared. I can and do still find them using duck duck go and Bing. Information will be free. There's an agenda at play here because I can't imagine how the people behind this law couldn't have foreseen this. I wonder whether Google is being set up because of its market-dominating position. If not, why weren't the other search engines similarly constrained?
    - magicalist 12y ago
      > If not, why weren't the other search engines similarly constrained? They are if they operate in the EU. But there's no universal place to submit takedown requests. People would also have to send them to Bing (according to this article DDG doesn't operate at all in the EU so is not subject to the ruling).
- darkarmani 12y ago
  > Unless, of course, you don't believe in redemption or rehabilitation. Neither of which have anything to do with a "true" reputation.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  freedom of historical reports? If we lose that one we are truly fucked.
- voyou 12y ago
  "It just will eventually get removed, years afterwards" I'm fairly sympathetic to the "right to be forgotten", but this Guardian article does raise some troubling questions about exactly how it is going to work. Two of the things it mentions being hidden from Google results are from 2011 and 2010. Is that "years afterwards"? Is three years so long ago that the information is genuinely irrelevant?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
Silhouette 12y ago
I don't think you understand what the "right to be forgotten" actually is. The point is not that someone who has done bad things can just demand that the entire world magically forget about it and give them a clean slate. You might find this summary PDF informative: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/files/factsheets/factsheet_data_protection_en.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/files/factsheets... [Edit: In a discussion about whether this behaviour amounts to censorship, within 2 minutes of posting, someone has downvoted this comment even though all it does is point out what appears to be a widely held misconception about the subject matter and provide a credible source. If that's not irony...]
- rgbrenner 12y ago
  After reading your link, it sounds like peter understands it just fine. He did say "send takedown request to Google".. and that's exactly the situation that is described in your PDF when discussing the case. The article says the court decided that the newspaper archive would be kept intact, and Google would need to delete the links -- and this was the correct balance of the public's right to know. In fact, from my reading of the article, I'm having a hard time thinking of a case where Google could refuse to delete a link -- since Google only links to other people's content, and that content will be available even if Google's links to it are deleted. Edit: the quote: The case itself provides an example of this balancing exercise. While the Court ordered Google to delete access to the information deemed irrelevant by the Spanish citizen, it also emphasised that the content of the underlying newspaper archive should not be changed in the name of data protection (paragraph 88 of the Court’s ruling). The Spanish citizens’ data is still accessible but is no longer ubiquitous. This is enough for the citizen’s privacy to be respected.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    > In fact, from my reading of the article, I'm having a hard time thinking of a case where Google could refuse to delete a link. How about the case discussed right here? The summary linked above says: The request may for example be turned down where the search engine operator concludes that for particular reasons, such as for example the public role played by John Smith, the interest of the general public to have access to the information in question justifies showing the links in Google search results. That seems like it could be pretty easily satisfied in this case: Stanley O'Neal is a major business figure with a clear public role, serving on the board that controls gigantic multinational corporation Alcoa. Given that powerful role, it's in the interest of the general public to be able to search for and find information about his recent past in positions of power at other gigantic multinational corporations, such as major events during his CEOship at Merrill Lynch. The main practical problem, imo, is that Google is unlikely to want to put in the resources that would be necessary to make case-by-case determinations, and would therefore probably just err on the side of deleting anything requested. But taken in isolation, this particular case really seems like one of the easier cases in which to reject the request, which they would probably win if litigated. Perhaps not quite as easy as if it were Silvio Berlusconi asking for articles about his political career to be delinked (that request would be really clearly rejectable), but O'Neal is still clearly a public figure, and the article in question was also about his public role as CEO (while the Mario Costeja González case was about the personal bankruptcy filing of a pretty obscure individual).
drewcrawford 12y ago
Maybe you can convince of something. Most people from the next generation use Facebook. They're not ignorant of how they use it--they use their privacy settings to hide posts from the public. However Facebook's ToS says [0] Facebook may use any information you share with them "to protect Facebook's or others' rights or property". So hypothetically, if Facebook felt some policy of a presidential candidate threatened "Facebook's rights", they would be in the clear, legally speaking, to publish those photos of you smoking a joint at 18. So what is the difference exactly between Facebook publishing a photo of a joint and an old Guardian article? They are both expressions of speech. They are both things that the public arguably has a right to know. They are both cases where there is no legal impediment to the speech--other than, in your words, the "right to censor criticism or true facts about yourself." On what basis can we say one is allowed and not the other? I cannot generate a reason for analyzing these situations differently, although I very much want to. I suggest we have to either allow both, or forbid both. This analysis would suggest that free speech and privacy have a very fundamental conflict--that the gain of one comes at the expense of the other. Increasingly, the right to privacy is really the right to prevent others from publishing information about you that they lawfully and ordinarily collect. I grow increasingly doubtful that we can achieve both outcomes--I think at some point we will have to choose sides. [0] https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/your-info#howweuse https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/your-info#howweuse
- smsm42 12y ago
  >>> they would be in the clear, legally speaking, to publish those photos of you smoking a joint at 18. So what? We know three of the last US presidents used drugs when they were young. For none of them it was a major problem. If they had seriously bad things done in the past - that would be a problem, but the we want to know about it. Knowing that the presidential candidate smoked weed in college doesn't hurt him anymore - we already know pretty much everybody did it anyway. >>> This analysis would suggest that free speech and privacy have a very fundamental conflict Only if you define privacy as "ability to go back in time and undo public things that I did". In my book, privacy doesn't mean that. 1984's memory holes are not privacy, they are an instrument of oppression and mind control. I don't see why somebody would be allowed to control my mind and make me forget things about them that they no longer consider beneficial to them. So I know which side I would choose - the opposite of where 1984 is and where EU is heading now.

mattmanser 12y ago

There's no threat at all to either freedom of speech or the press. If the guardian publishes something, it will have its day in the sun. It just will eventually get removed, years afterwards. No press freedoms impinged, years after you've had your expressive speech. Whatever freedom that is, freedom of historical reports?, it's nothing to do with speech or press. If you want to re-report the information, you could, but it then would likely no longer be for the public good or interest, it would merely be vindictive. Unless, of course, you don't believe in redemption or rehabilitation.

joeguilmette 12y ago
It is most definitely censorship, even if delayed. For example, book burning is pretty hard to defend, and the books burned were likely written many months and years before they were burned.
Afforess 12y ago
It reminds me of 1984, where the party is perpetually rewriting history to fit their narrative. This is it, history is being rewritten. He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past
cwyers 12y ago
It is absolutely a restriction on freedom of speech to tell Google that it can't mention the very existence of various Guardian and BBC articles.
GauntletWizard 12y ago
Today's BBC article thoroughly disproves your point: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28130581 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28130581 Freedom of press is about creating a public record. When you remove that record from the public, when you censor the past of public discourse, you've infringed on free speech. Real discourse is full of [citation needed], and if you can preemptively remove those citations, there will be cheating.
- Spearchucker 12y ago
  And yet those [citation needed]s haven't disappeared. I can and do still find them using duck duck go and Bing. Information will be free. There's an agenda at play here because I can't imagine how the people behind this law couldn't have foreseen this. I wonder whether Google is being set up because of its market-dominating position. If not, why weren't the other search engines similarly constrained?
  - magicalist 12y ago
    > If not, why weren't the other search engines similarly constrained? They are if they operate in the EU. But there's no universal place to submit takedown requests. People would also have to send them to Bing (according to this article DDG doesn't operate at all in the EU so is not subject to the ruling).
darkarmani 12y ago
> Unless, of course, you don't believe in redemption or rehabilitation. Neither of which have anything to do with a "true" reputation.
lotsofmangos 12y ago
freedom of historical reports? If we lose that one we are truly fucked.
voyou 12y ago
"It just will eventually get removed, years afterwards" I'm fairly sympathetic to the "right to be forgotten", but this Guardian article does raise some troubling questions about exactly how it is going to work. Two of the things it mentions being hidden from Google results are from 2011 and 2010. Is that "years afterwards"? Is three years so long ago that the information is genuinely irrelevant?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

Silhouette 12y ago

I don't think you understand what the "right to be forgotten" actually is. The point is not that someone who has done bad things can just demand that the entire world magically forget about it and give them a clean slate. You might find this summary PDF informative: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/files/factsheets/factsheet_data_protection_en.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/files/factsheets... [Edit: In a discussion about whether this behaviour amounts to censorship, within 2 minutes of posting, someone has downvoted this comment even though all it does is point out what appears to be a widely held misconception about the subject matter and provide a credible source. If that's not irony...]

rgbrenner 12y ago
After reading your link, it sounds like peter understands it just fine. He did say "send takedown request to Google".. and that's exactly the situation that is described in your PDF when discussing the case. The article says the court decided that the newspaper archive would be kept intact, and Google would need to delete the links -- and this was the correct balance of the public's right to know. In fact, from my reading of the article, I'm having a hard time thinking of a case where Google could refuse to delete a link -- since Google only links to other people's content, and that content will be available even if Google's links to it are deleted. Edit: the quote: The case itself provides an example of this balancing exercise. While the Court ordered Google to delete access to the information deemed irrelevant by the Spanish citizen, it also emphasised that the content of the underlying newspaper archive should not be changed in the name of data protection (paragraph 88 of the Court’s ruling). The Spanish citizens’ data is still accessible but is no longer ubiquitous. This is enough for the citizen’s privacy to be respected.
- _delirium 12y ago
  > In fact, from my reading of the article, I'm having a hard time thinking of a case where Google could refuse to delete a link. How about the case discussed right here? The summary linked above says: The request may for example be turned down where the search engine operator concludes that for particular reasons, such as for example the public role played by John Smith, the interest of the general public to have access to the information in question justifies showing the links in Google search results. That seems like it could be pretty easily satisfied in this case: Stanley O'Neal is a major business figure with a clear public role, serving on the board that controls gigantic multinational corporation Alcoa. Given that powerful role, it's in the interest of the general public to be able to search for and find information about his recent past in positions of power at other gigantic multinational corporations, such as major events during his CEOship at Merrill Lynch. The main practical problem, imo, is that Google is unlikely to want to put in the resources that would be necessary to make case-by-case determinations, and would therefore probably just err on the side of deleting anything requested. But taken in isolation, this particular case really seems like one of the easier cases in which to reject the request, which they would probably win if litigated. Perhaps not quite as easy as if it were Silvio Berlusconi asking for articles about his political career to be delinked (that request would be really clearly rejectable), but O'Neal is still clearly a public figure, and the article in question was also about his public role as CEO (while the Mario Costeja González case was about the personal bankruptcy filing of a pretty obscure individual).

drewcrawford 12y ago

Maybe you can convince of something. Most people from the next generation use Facebook. They're not ignorant of how they use it--they use their privacy settings to hide posts from the public. However Facebook's ToS says [0] Facebook may use any information you share with them "to protect Facebook's or others' rights or property". So hypothetically, if Facebook felt some policy of a presidential candidate threatened "Facebook's rights", they would be in the clear, legally speaking, to publish those photos of you smoking a joint at 18. So what is the difference exactly between Facebook publishing a photo of a joint and an old Guardian article? They are both expressions of speech. They are both things that the public arguably has a right to know. They are both cases where there is no legal impediment to the speech--other than, in your words, the "right to censor criticism or true facts about yourself." On what basis can we say one is allowed and not the other? I cannot generate a reason for analyzing these situations differently, although I very much want to. I suggest we have to either allow both, or forbid both. This analysis would suggest that free speech and privacy have a very fundamental conflict--that the gain of one comes at the expense of the other. Increasingly, the right to privacy is really the right to prevent others from publishing information about you that they lawfully and ordinarily collect. I grow increasingly doubtful that we can achieve both outcomes--I think at some point we will have to choose sides. [0] https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/your-info#howweuse https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/your-info#howweuse

smsm42 12y ago
>>> they would be in the clear, legally speaking, to publish those photos of you smoking a joint at 18. So what? We know three of the last US presidents used drugs when they were young. For none of them it was a major problem. If they had seriously bad things done in the past - that would be a problem, but the we want to know about it. Knowing that the presidential candidate smoked weed in college doesn't hurt him anymore - we already know pretty much everybody did it anyway. >>> This analysis would suggest that free speech and privacy have a very fundamental conflict Only if you define privacy as "ability to go back in time and undo public things that I did". In my book, privacy doesn't mean that. 1984's memory holes are not privacy, they are an instrument of oppression and mind control. I don't see why somebody would be allowed to control my mind and make me forget things about them that they no longer consider beneficial to them. So I know which side I would choose - the opposite of where 1984 is and where EU is heading now.