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No I like it. I love the idea that an individual could put it to a corporation without putting millions. And I think there is a pure bias here from Americans. I

No I like it. I love the idea that an individual could put it to a corporation without putting millions. And I think there is a pure bias here from Americans. I was writing a long comment but I scrapped it, they love free speech and firearms, and there is no way to force acceptance of difference of point of view on them. And the pianist is not going anywhere, he wrote a letter to the wrong organization (and now he's thrown under the bus). He can only scrub results on the European Google.

jMyles 12y ago
I don't think most of the objections are normative (ie, free speech and firearms are good) so much as empirical (ie, the nature of the internet, or of human networking in some more abstract sense, precludes a "right to be forgotten").
- ObviousScience 12y ago
  Except that for most of human history, except for particularly notable events, things were forgotten relatively quickly. The number of pictures and written records was VASTLY lower, as was their accessibility. It's a peculiarity of the current age that we can find out so much about people so easily, that trivialities are preserved in photographic quality, and that these records are preserved publicly for extended periods of time. I think the "right to be forgotten" has always implicitly existed and that we accidentally erased it before we realized what we were doing, and only now are seeing a backlash as the effects of that choice are being felt.
  - jMyles 12y ago
    Yeah, I think that's a good assessment. And the American part might be a belief that the internet represents a completely different age than "most of human history" (I'm not sure if people around the world think that way, but my sense is that many Americans do).
  - ggreer 12y ago
    I don't think that's very true. Before a few centuries ago, travel was expensive. Most people rarely strayed far from their birthplace, making them likely to interact with the same group over their lifetime. If they did something embarrassing or stupid, stories would percolate indefinitely. It cost too much to move somewhere else and start a new life. What's worse is that back then people had difficulty discovering rumors about themselves. At least today, we can do vanity searches.
    - ElDiablo666 12y ago
      That's a terrible analogy. We're talking about the difference between a small community and digital information technology in the era of ubiquitous networks. For one, the level of detail is absurdly lopsided; we're comparing high definition audio and video with what, someone's diary at worst? The records kept are essentially incomparable. Second, there is just no comparing a small close knit community to the entire world and instantaneous access. No one is saying that people don't have a right to their memories. Even communities have the right to remember things collectively. But imagine if you couldn't get a job in your small town because everyone whispered about you being a child molester or something. You couldn't get housing. No one would talk to you. You had to beg for food. My example is a bit extreme but it illustrates the example well because some of these things happen on a massive scale to people whose potential employers web search them.
rpenm 12y ago
Mostly, I have a bias against book burning, which is what this kind of knowledge destruction resembles.
- nraynaud 12y ago
  which is why the law asks the search engines to remove stuff from an index and not to remove the original source. They are trying to do what archival did: the information is still there, but it's not nagging you constantly.
  - rpenm 12y ago
    I was being a bit snarky, apologies. But at the end of the day, we are still talking about making knowledge inaccessible. It may be necessary to protect individual privacy, but it still worries me. Each case will be about weighing the harms to the individual against the harms to the public. Powerful interests will find ways to exploit such a subtle system for their own benefit.
    - nraynaud 12y ago
      We are talking about protecting individual against corporations. Currently media corporation are all powerful and only big money can fight them with enough media splash to make a record straight (or do a PR white washing campaign after a crisis). This law doesn't suppress the information, it does the equivalent of forcing you to go to the basement of the newspaper to find some select personal informations concerning individual people. Moreover the concept of free speech itself has been high-jacked by big money for bullshit (the nickname for citizen united), so I don't see how it's protecting anyone from anything, it's part of the game. Free speech was just a protection of political ideas against the government and it's mostly dead in the days of terrorism law.
  - noamyoungerm 12y ago
    Does the search engine not have a right to freedom of speech? Who is the government to tell Google what they can or cannot say?

jMyles 12y ago

I don't think most of the objections are normative (ie, free speech and firearms are good) so much as empirical (ie, the nature of the internet, or of human networking in some more abstract sense, precludes a "right to be forgotten").

ObviousScience 12y ago
Except that for most of human history, except for particularly notable events, things were forgotten relatively quickly. The number of pictures and written records was VASTLY lower, as was their accessibility. It's a peculiarity of the current age that we can find out so much about people so easily, that trivialities are preserved in photographic quality, and that these records are preserved publicly for extended periods of time. I think the "right to be forgotten" has always implicitly existed and that we accidentally erased it before we realized what we were doing, and only now are seeing a backlash as the effects of that choice are being felt.
- jMyles 12y ago
  Yeah, I think that's a good assessment. And the American part might be a belief that the internet represents a completely different age than "most of human history" (I'm not sure if people around the world think that way, but my sense is that many Americans do).
- ggreer 12y ago
  I don't think that's very true. Before a few centuries ago, travel was expensive. Most people rarely strayed far from their birthplace, making them likely to interact with the same group over their lifetime. If they did something embarrassing or stupid, stories would percolate indefinitely. It cost too much to move somewhere else and start a new life. What's worse is that back then people had difficulty discovering rumors about themselves. At least today, we can do vanity searches.
  - ElDiablo666 12y ago
    That's a terrible analogy. We're talking about the difference between a small community and digital information technology in the era of ubiquitous networks. For one, the level of detail is absurdly lopsided; we're comparing high definition audio and video with what, someone's diary at worst? The records kept are essentially incomparable. Second, there is just no comparing a small close knit community to the entire world and instantaneous access. No one is saying that people don't have a right to their memories. Even communities have the right to remember things collectively. But imagine if you couldn't get a job in your small town because everyone whispered about you being a child molester or something. You couldn't get housing. No one would talk to you. You had to beg for food. My example is a bit extreme but it illustrates the example well because some of these things happen on a massive scale to people whose potential employers web search them.

rpenm 12y ago

Mostly, I have a bias against book burning, which is what this kind of knowledge destruction resembles.

nraynaud 12y ago
which is why the law asks the search engines to remove stuff from an index and not to remove the original source. They are trying to do what archival did: the information is still there, but it's not nagging you constantly.
- rpenm 12y ago
  I was being a bit snarky, apologies. But at the end of the day, we are still talking about making knowledge inaccessible. It may be necessary to protect individual privacy, but it still worries me. Each case will be about weighing the harms to the individual against the harms to the public. Powerful interests will find ways to exploit such a subtle system for their own benefit.
  - nraynaud 12y ago
    We are talking about protecting individual against corporations. Currently media corporation are all powerful and only big money can fight them with enough media splash to make a record straight (or do a PR white washing campaign after a crisis). This law doesn't suppress the information, it does the equivalent of forcing you to go to the basement of the newspaper to find some select personal informations concerning individual people. Moreover the concept of free speech itself has been high-jacked by big money for bullshit (the nickname for citizen united), so I don't see how it's protecting anyone from anything, it's part of the game. Free speech was just a protection of political ideas against the government and it's mostly dead in the days of terrorism law.
- noamyoungerm 12y ago
  Does the search engine not have a right to freedom of speech? Who is the government to tell Google what they can or cannot say?