7 ms·

The "right to be forgotten" is a doublespeak - it is really a concept for revoking others' right to free speech. I have no idea how the EU justice system works

• wmf 12y ago
  it is really a concept for revoking others' right to free speech Yes, because in Europe free speech isn't an absolute right; sometimes the right of privacy trumps free speech.
  • adharmad 12y ago
    Anything that trumps free speech, except for the truly extreme cases (shouting fire in a theatre etc.) is a slippery slope that can erode liberty over a period of time. How long before this moves into "right to not be offended trumps free speech" territory?
    • anon1385 12y ago
      So you are saying that the exceptions to free speech that you agree with are fine, but that the exceptions other people/cultures have chosen and that you disagree with are a 'slippery slope'.
      • Karunamon 12y ago
        This standard of yours completely eliminates the ability to critically comment on the actions of "other cultures".
        • fidotron 12y ago
          Not at all. You can comment all you want about it, but it doesn't compel them to change how they are at all.
          • Karunamon 12y ago
            Then why call it out as if it were a negative? Nothing anybody says on Hacker News is going to change EU law.
            • fidotron 12y ago
              Because you're exhibiting cultural imperialism.
              • Karunamon 12y ago
                What does that even mean? You're talking out of both sides of your mouth here. First it's okay to comment on other culture's behaviors and now it's "cultural imperialism". How about everyone is okay to comment on whatever they wish without the meta value judgements? I think that system works pretty well.
                • DanBC 12y ago
                  There is a tendency for some US commentators to totally ignore the European attitude around freedom of speech and to talk about the slippery slope to totalitarian states. Sometimes those people will mix up "first ammendment" rights with what a website owner is allowed to do; or they appear to be unaware of the very many cases of people in America who lose their jobs or are arrested because they wear the wrong t-shirt or have an innocent poster on their door. We often hear these people when there's coverage of twitter trolls going to court. They'll say that it's ridiculous to prosecute people for being mean on twitter. This is intensely frustrating because -and this should be fucking obvious- no-one is arrested for being a bit mean on social media. People are arrested for making credible repeated threats of violence. But that happens in the US.
                  • mineshaftgap 12y ago
                    An Englishman did three months for an offensive drunken tweet after a match, brilliant.
                  • 12y ago
      • mpyne 12y ago
        You say that as if it's hypocritical, but this seems like an almost axiomatic statement to me. It is perfectly reasonable to have opinions about exceptions to free speech which are safe and unsafe, and to advocate why to those with different opinions. Just like the USA's interpretation of "free speech" isn't sacred for the rest of the world (and might actually be wrong!), a European nation's interpretation of safe and unsafe free speech is not absolute and might be wrong. Portions of the U.S. used to have a strong cultural affinity for human slavery, yet many within that same U.S. argued that slavery was wrong from day 1 of the current republic. Europe used to have a cultural affinity for anti-Semitism (and it hasn't completely gone away). If you believe in any sort of objective truth whatsoever, then it's possible for a 'cultural value' to still be wrong.
    • jasonzemos 12y ago
      Shouting fire in a theater isn't an extreme case if you think about it. When was the last time you heard of a stampede in a crowded theater when someone shouted fire and there was none? I've never heard of it. Who would take off running? Would you take off running because someone else is? Honestly. The case this phrase originated from is overpraised.
      • mc32 12y ago
        Basically, one can imagine, one would not want someone to invoke panic into others frivolously when it has potential to cause physical harm. Another example would be shouting "She's got a gun, arhhhh!" in a crowded plazza while setting off some firecrackers.
        • rwmj 12y ago
          The firecrackers aren't speech.
          • pluma 12y ago
            What if instead you have an accomplice who's really good at beatboxing?
          • mc32 12y ago
            One could argue that "art isn't speech" as well. It's expression none the less.
        • evan_ 12y ago
          Or yelling "I have Ebola" on an airplane.
      • Crito 12y ago
        The case the phrase is from was about placing limitations on blatantly political speech. It was a truly reprehensible decision. "A unanimous Supreme Court, in a famous opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., concluded that defendants who distributed leaflets to draft-age men, urging resistance to induction, could be convicted of an attempt to obstruct the draft, a criminal offense." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States From it's very inception, that phrase has been used to justify the restriction of political speech. Nothing has changed since 1917, people still use it to argue against political speech to this day.
    • mineshaftgap 12y ago
      > How long before this moves into "right to not be offended trumps free speech" territory? This is already the case in Europe.
  • stretchwithme 12y ago
    Then why isn't the government going on to BBC servers and removing those articles? Don't they violate somebody's privacy? Is there even a right to keep private something everybody knows? A right to have milk on the floor be in the glass it spilled out of? Free speech wasn't an absolute right in Soviet Russia either. And, yes, they too had ways of avoiding naming what they were actually doing.
    • untog 12y ago
      Is there an equivalent of Godwin's Law for invoking Soviet Russia when discussing free speech? The answer to your question is that the EU law is written horribly, by people who have no real idea how the internet works.
      • xtrumanx 12y ago
        I hope not. I already find it annoying enough when people decide to shut down a conversation by bringing up Godwin's Law.
  • elif 12y ago
    In the US it is not an absolute right either. Ignoring the cliche fire in a theater thing, the ag-gag bills and provisions of the patriot act make it illegal to say something which could impact the profitability of perishable food production chains. Even true statements are illegal to make.
    • dkfmn 12y ago
      But many would argue that these laws are unconstitutional. Free speech is one of the highest laws in the land and there's a court challenge underway: https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-idaho-and-coalition-files-lawsuit-over-controversial-ag-gag-law https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-idaho-and-coalition-fi...
    • mpyne 12y ago
      As the other comment mentions, restrictions like those may well be overturned, but it's true that free speech is not an absolute right within the U.S., considering we have laws against slander, libel, divulging personally-identifiable information and some types of medical records, espionage, etc. Free speech is an individual right that like any other right, gets balanced against others' individual rights.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• anigbrowl 12y ago
  No it isn't. You can still do research and publish stories like 'John Doe, running for office, was convicted of littering 20 years ago...' You just won't be able to rely on a search engine to gather all that information for you; you'll have to research your subject a more old-fashioned way, looking through all the stories from the period. The only actors constrained under this regime are search engines, and I'm not sure algorithmically generated search results rise to the level of political speech as they're not expressive of an opinion. I have no idea how the EU justice system works Then why not inform yourself before making grand pronouncements on what counts as error? There are other legal philosophies besides the one you adhere to, you know.
  • Crito 12y ago
    What you are suggesting would further entrench and enrich the Fourth Estate. Is that your intent?
    • anigbrowl 12y ago
      It's not my intent, and I find your premise questionable. Are you suggesting that newspapers and similar organs would try to make money out of people who wanted to search their archives? If so then yes, they probably would, but so what?
      • Crito 12y ago
        No, I am suggesting that people who are not payed to search through archives will frequently lack the time to search through archives. Digging through newspaper articles at your local library to find information on the dozen politicians on the ballet is something that most people do not have the time/resources to do. For the most part, these people will have to rely on the media to do that for them. Search engines are an equalizer, they allow people to search through massive amounts of data blazingly fast. This closes the gap between the research a professional reporter is capable of, and the research that the general public is capable of.
        • 12y ago
• adsr 12y ago
  I don't think it's that clear cut, there are some inherent challenges related to privacy and internet, a persons past that may influence future opportunities in a way that's not really fair. In fact, Eric Schmidt has expressed that same sentiment publicly. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-will-have-to-change-names-to-escape-cyber-past-warns-Googles-Eric-Schmidt.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-w...
• gadders 12y ago
  I think one of the issues with the ECHR is that to be a judge on the court, you don't actually have to have worked as a judge. You just need good moral character and law qualifications [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Court_of_Human_Rights#Judges http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Court_of_Human_Rights#...
  • barsoap 12y ago
    So you'd rather trust someone who rubber-stamped traffic infractions at a low-level court for 20 years than a professor of law to decide on highly abstract and generic cases? Non-judges are a rather common thing among high European courts. And what would be wrong about putting someone whose publications have laid the groundwork for other judges' descisions in the past in such a position? It's not like the academic track is any less qualified.
    • gadders 12y ago
      I'd rather trust someone that has worked as a judge at the highest level in their own national court, rather than academics that are long on theory but have never tried a case.
      • barsoap 12y ago
        The European Courts aren't really a higher courts than the national high courts, just ask the German one. Which, yes, does include academics and even civil servants with extensive background in law. And unlike say in America, the academic qualification you need to be a judge is higher than the one you need to be a lawyer, in the first place: Whether your professional choice then is to become a judge or something else changes nothing about your qualification.
        • gadders 12y ago
          They seem to think they are higher courts, given that people can appeal to them after exhausting the process in their own country. It seems strange that people can become judges without actually practising the law or working as a judge in a lower court first. If I was being operated on, I'd want a surgeon that has operated before, not an academic expert on surgery.