Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic • Hacker News Board

Re: Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic

#81

Post by thegeomaster » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 7:41 PM UTC

jbigelow76 wrote: post #53

losteric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google cannot become our only source of truth, but should we eliminate it as a source of truth? What about other search engines? Social media shares? What happens when a journalist publishes an article based on offline investigation, does the right to be forgotten still apply? Search engines need to fight libelous SEO attacks, but this is a deeply unsettling over-reaction. Let's drop the Orwellian phrasing and call i…

Google cannot become our only source of truth, but should we eliminate it as a source of truth? No we should not, the law seems well intentioned, some kid may not have to worry about an embarrassing photo from university days following him/her around into their adult life, etc. But I think it would be an overall net negative for abuse in hiding truly relevant information.

>But I think it would be an overall net negative for abuse in hiding truly relevant information.

You say that, but according to some reports, only 5% of requests to Google to remove personal information from search results comes from high-profile figures (politicians and the like), the rest is just ordinary people [1]. I know that there is a huge selection bias going on here, but I'm not sure you can discount the data point just based off of that.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/14/google-ac...

Re: Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic

#82

Post by CobrastanJorji » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 7:42 PM UTC

Sharlin wrote: post #45

lightbyte wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like the actual problem is >This makes every person they might do business with to withdraw. Hiding information from people sounds like a bandaid to the issue of people being overly judgemental. Maybe we need to be more accepting to rehabilitation.

The real problem is internet makes everything look like it happened yesterday. Traditional news is, well, news, but Google doesn’t really distinguish between yesterday and 20 years ago. Some 90s articles and pages are still perfectly relevant and should be on the first page of search results, others very much not so.

It does, though. The problem is that the most generally notable thing about a boring person who committed a serious crime 20 years ago is in fact the serious crime that they committed 20 years ago.

Put another way, if I put the name of my new neighbor into Google, the resulting webpage I would in fact most want to see as the result would definitely be the article on the murder they committed 20 years ago, even though they have a Facebook page that was updated 10 minutes ago. Facebook page can be result number 2.

If Google didn't show that result at all because it happened 20 years ago, and that person never did anything else notable more recently, I would consider Google to be a little broken.

Re: Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic

#83

Post by will_brown » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 7:43 PM UTC

sumeno wrote: post #57

will_brown wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Should we give Trump the right for his bankruptcies to be forgotten? I think even Trump should be entitled to accurate public reporting, for example, it should be noted Trump has never personally filed for bankruptcy, rather, he has been the owner of companies (casinos) that have filed for bankruptcy. Would you attribute the recent Toys R Us bankruptcy to individual owners? Or if your favorite startup goes under and…

> Would you attribute the recent Toys R Us bankruptcy to individual owners? I wouldn't attribute it to the owners of individual stores, but the CEO? Absolutely > Or if your favorite startup goes under and has to declare bankruptcy to shield itself from creditors before the company dissolves would you start attributing bankruptcy to individual employees with equity/stock options? Trump wasn't an individual employee wi…

It should be noted im not sticking up for Trump, just addressing the idea of attributing a company bankruptcy to company owners as if they personally filed bankruptcy, as done by OP.

Still if you want to attribute the bankruptcies of companies to Trump personally because he was CEO...post a link, because I don’t think Trump was an employee of these companies at all, much less responsible for day to day operations of the casinos as CEO.

He was an owner for sure and likely sat on the board, not unlike many SV investors and VCs of startups that fail everyday.

Re: Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic

#84

Post by snoman » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 7:44 PM UTC

lightbyte wrote: post #61

gaius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we only forcing Google to remove this information when, as you say, it will still be in the public record. Because ease of access makes all the difference, and it is disingenuous to argue otherwise. This law won't protect Trump from having his bankruptcies reported but it will protect someone who made a stupid mistake when they were younger having it haunt them for the rest of their careers or lives because i…

>it will protect someone who made a stupid mistake when they were younger having it haunt them for the rest of their careers or lives because it would otherwise have been the top hit when you google'd their name. I don't agree that this will protect anyone, or that they need to be protected in the first place. This is just hiding the problem that someone would judge you for whatever the content is. In my opinion the…

> In my opinion the real solution here is to be more understanding to stupid things people have done in the past.

If you think the real solution is to change the way the world thinks about, and judges, everyone else then you're being remarkably naive.

Re: Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic

#85

Post by jasode » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 7:46 PM UTC

oldcynic wrote: post #73

darawk wrote: post #2

Seems pretty journalistic to me. This "right to be forgotten" seems incredibly dangerous to me. Should we give Trump the right for his bankruptcies to be forgotten? Do we give child molesters the right for their crimes to be forgotten? Why should people have the right to have things they don't like wiped from the historical record? EDIT: I should point out, I do understand the other side. People shouldn't be punished…

Doesn't seem dangerous or journalistic at all here. In the UK at least the legal system is already aware and deals quite reasonably with the right to be forgotten. Has done for years. After a certain period a crime is considered spent and you can not be required to reveal it - except in some very limited circumstances. You'd have to reveal spent crimes if you want to join the police or become a magistrate for instanc…

>Doesn't seem that complex to achieve either. So what would be the problem then?

Since you're familiar with it, I'm curious how the following situations are handled...

There was a famous rape case involving a Stanford student. His name is Brock Turner.

If you search directly on keywords "Brock Turner"[1], the first results will be his rape conviction. I think it's logical to assume the Right To Be Forgotten wants these search results directly associated with his name to be removed.

But what about a level of indirection? What about searching for "The Stanford Rapist"[2]. Those results are also about Brock Turner. Are those removed as well?

What about another level of indirection? If one searches images for keywords "mugshot criminology textbook"[3], Brock Turner's photos are the most prominent. Would those get removed too?

What if the victim writes a popular blogpost, "I was raped by Brock Turner and here's my story...etc...", would her article be removed from the google results? What takes precedence? The victim's free speech or the felon's censorship powers granted by Right To Be Forgotten?

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=brock+turner

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=stanford+rapist

[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=mugshot+criminology+textbook...

(made possible because several reddit threads made it widely known that his photo was now in college textbooks: https://www.reddit.com/search?q=brock+turner)

Re: Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic

#86

Post by gaius » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 7:47 PM UTC

bussierem wrote: post #68

lightbyte wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it will protect someone who made a stupid mistake when they were younger having it haunt them for the rest of their careers or lives because it would otherwise have been the top hit when you google'd their name. I don't agree that this will protect anyone, or that they need to be protected in the first place. This is just hiding the problem that someone would judge you for whatever the content is. In my opinion the…

>I don't agree that this will protect anyone, or that they need to be protected in the first place. This is just hiding the problem that someone would judge you for whatever the content is. You can't deny that the advent of social media has brought about a MUCH bigger problem of people getting fired, judged, or their lives ruined by stupid mistakes, posts online of a single comment they made, etc. These things aren't…

Maybe one day a stint at Google (or Facebook or Uber) will be the red flag that impacts someone's career, "smart, but no regard for user's privacy, think we'll pass on this candidate". They are rapidly heading that way.

Re: Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic

#87

Post by pbalau » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 7:49 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #13

komali2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I recall from "The man who spent 100,000$ to remove himself from google," the "right to be forgotten" specifically targets falsehoods and lies. So no, Trump's bankruptcies won't be forgotten in this system, but a false accusation of child molestation can be.

But these guys were convicted of these crimes, no? That makes this information that's trying to be removed in this case pretty clearly not a lie. Unless i'm missing something here. I think i'm cautiously in favor of the standard you propose though, if that is indeed the standard.

There were stories about people that spent years in jail, but at some point new evidence was found clearing them. I believe these people deserve the things they were wrongly accused of, to be forgotten.

Re: Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic

#88

Post by redler » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #15

> ‘right to be forgotten’ I really think that hiding facts is a mistake. Yes someone made a bad mistake why is it their right to have it removed from the internet? Now if there are factually wrong then absolutely they should have the ability to have it removed. Things can legally be removed from a person's record like crimes committed by minors but if someone's life was impacted are we going to remove the victims' st…

As someone else mentioned on this thread, there's little distinction in search engine results between something that happened yesterday and something that happened 20 years ago. We now have the phenomenon of information no longer "aging". We've always had "news" to tell us what's, well, new. But over time that information would age. It would become harder to recall, and take more work to retrieve. A story on the evening news would later be in the paper, perhaps in a magazine a month later, then in a book a year after that. The book would move off the bestseller lists, the newspaper onto microfiche, and the magazine into the stacks of big libraries, or oblivion. The moving finger would write, and having written, move on.

But now it all lives forever, whether true or false, fresh and available and effortlessly findable by anybody, with no decay or attrition. It's a new and qualitatively different thing. The "right to be forgotten" feels like some attempt, probably quixotic, to align this new situation with the information decay expectations we've all had from the beginning of humanity right up until this very moment.

Re: Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic

#89

Post by paulie_a » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 7:51 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #59

darawk wrote: post #2

Seems pretty journalistic to me. This "right to be forgotten" seems incredibly dangerous to me. Should we give Trump the right for his bankruptcies to be forgotten? Do we give child molesters the right for their crimes to be forgotten? Why should people have the right to have things they don't like wiped from the historical record? EDIT: I should point out, I do understand the other side. People shouldn't be punished…

Why should people have the right to have things they don't like wiped from the historical record? Your criminal record is expunged after a time. This is about whether Google is above the law of the land.

No it isn't

Re: Google seeks to limit ‘right to be forgotten’ by claiming it’s journalistic

#90

Post by skybrian » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 7:52 PM UTC

Heliosmaster wrote: post #21

I see here a few comments criticizing the right to be forgotten, but I pose a question a bit differently. Let us assume somebody commits a crime. He goes to jail, he pays for it, as society deems necessary. A local newspaper reported it and now every time you google their name such an article pops up. This makes every person they might do business with to withdraw. It seems to me the debt to society has been paid by…

I think this is much like the decision made by a journalist whether to publish.

Journalists sometimes talk about the public's "right to know". This directly contracts an individual's "right to privacy," so the journalist has to weigh balancing interests and make a decision. (If they screw up, the courts will review it, though the damage is done.)

Years later, it's not unreasonable for some other person to weigh these balancing interests again. Someone has to make the call balancing the public's "right to history" versus the individual's "right to be forgotten".

This can't be automated. You're not going to make a good decision without some person (journalist or historian) evaluating the particular case.

(By the way, I don't think talking about "rights" is at all that helpful when thinking about balancing conflicting interests.)