Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case • Hacker News Board

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#251

Post by lovich » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

volak wrote: post #236

lovich wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how HR acts in practice though. Especially with automated tools, checking off a "have you ever had a prior conviction" box just gets you an automated rejection without a human ever looking at it

Yes a lot of companies do. Especially minimum wage jobs. Because there are vastly more people without a record willing to work. But now imagine you have a previous conviction but you are willing to work for less than minimum wage? If I value a fry cook for $10 an hour and I get 1 person with a previous conviction who wants to work for $5 - I'll hire him in a heartbeat so long as I could fire him at any moment. And si…

That's just going to make a space underclass. There's not a benefit to convicting people because hey, cheap labor. The same forces are already happening with prison labor.

What you are suggesting is that any single mistake is now a permanent albatross around a person's neck and a reason for them to be permanently deprived. In a society where we have so many laws that everyone breaks several a day, this just leads to selective enforcement and corruption.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#252

Post by lovich » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

volak wrote: post #229

lovich wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You apparently live a privelaged life then. Laws are being passed in US states to prevent criminal history from being asked until an offer has been made precisely because people are not able to get over the result. The HR pipeline treats any sort of checkered pass as and immediate rejection, whether or not a hiring manager would treat it as such

True - 100% true. If I had a checkered past with no references I would expect to get denied for every job I applied to. To combat this prejudice I would fully expect to have to lower my expectations in the form of lower wage or other restriction. If I offer to work for half the normal pay not only will I definitely get hired but I'll get a good reference providing I prove myself capable and trustworthy.

Why would you get a good reference? Your boss can just always give a bad reference so that your forced to stay. After all he's getting cheap labor, and you have to risk never getting employed again.

You're coming at this from a viewpoint that implies that companies want to help people, when we are already dealing with that fact that they absolutely do not

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#253

Post by lovich » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 6:44 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #196

lovich wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can and have, in America at least. Companies used to think all black people were untrustworthy and women couldn't handle the responsibility of leadership. We didn't let them continue to discriminate like that

Race is a protected class [1]. Evidence of criminal history is not. [1] https://www.archives.gov/eeo/terminology.html "Protected Class: The groups protected from the employment discrimination by law. These groups include men and women on the basis of sex; any group which shares a common race, religion, color, or national origin; people over 40; and people with physical or mental handicaps. Every U.S. citizen is a mem…

The protected class didn't pop up out of nowhere. It wasn't a law of physics. We could easily change what is a protected class.

Additionally selected enforcement of laws has turned criminal convictions into a way to get rid of a statistically higher rate of minorities without saying that's why you are doing it. If I recall correctly that is the main reason that Massachusetts banned asking for criminal history on applications

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#254

Post by gaius » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #35

Elessar wrote: post #8

We're rapidly moving to a point where an official (government) criminal record is not important to folks you want to interact with -- landlords, employers etc. They will instead turn to Google. As such, Google might as well be the official record for many people. And if one put themsleves in the shoes of a victim, or even a criminal who has served their time, Google's pagerank is doing them a disservice. I don't know…

>As a society, we approve of jail being the mechanism to "forgive" a person's crime. That's not really true. Serving prison time is neither a way to "forgive" nor a way to "pay debt back to society" . Those are just common phrases some people use. If felons were truly forgiven , they would have their right to vote restored. They wouldn't be denied a passport to travel abroad or denied a firearms license. Convicted fe…

There are 3 reasons to send people to prison: retribution (punishment), rehabilitation and removal (from society so they can’t commit any more crimes).

Now, should retribution be infinite? Is rehabilitation impossible? Should a criminal be permanently removed from society?

We generally answer no to these questions except in rare situations that are front-page news and enter popular vocabulary. That’s why Google is in the wrong here.

And they know it too - the only reason they want to do it is a few more ad clicks.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#255

Post by bsder » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

volak wrote: post #39

mrtksn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark steal cookies, gets caught and serves his sentence in jail. Now Mark is out, looking for a job as a JavaScript developer but when Mark is Googled to check about his involvement in OS projects and personal portfolio before his Github profile the article on CNN from 5 years ago is displayed and apparently Mark is a cookie monster. Is Mark sentenced to never be employed again? Mark made a mistake but Is He really w…

The problem is future employers don't know if mark made a one time mistake or is a serial cookie monster. Why would they hire mark over a similar employee with a clean record? Mark needs to be given the opportunity to demonstrate to an employer hes no longer a cookie monster. He needs to rebuild that trust. He would do this by taking a lower than average pay, agreeing to periodic cookie-tests, and giving the employer…

> The problem is future employers don't know if mark made a one time mistake or is a serial cookie monster. Why would they hire mark over a similar employee with a clean record?

Because for certain types of cookie monster, those who steal cookies, get caught, and serve their penalty are MORE trustworthy than the population at large.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#256

Post by fastball » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 6:48 PM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #109

lumisota wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discriminating on the basis of spent convictions is illegal in the UK (where this ruling took place).

Oh cool, I didn't know that. Thanks for commenting. Is there something I'm missing about Right to be Forgotten then? Why is this needed if it's already illegal to discriminate against someone over minor crimes or scandals? Does the law not have much teeth or something?

Right to be forgotten can apply to anything where a private business has my data.

Case-in-point: Facebook. Most people don't believe that when you ask a company like Facebook or Google to delete your account, they actually delete your data. Sure, you no longer have access to it, definitely, but most people seem to assume that it's not entirely gone.

RTBF ensures that companies whom you provided information to delete this information if asked to politely.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#257

Post by humanrebar » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #212

wumpus wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's one big difference, and it's Orwellian -- courts and politicians are claiming that removing something from a search engine isn't censorship.

Yup, essentially "we're not blocking any content, just blocking any means for you to find it".

That and answering questions isn't considered speech when the thing answering is a search engine.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#258

Post by comboy » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #241

comboy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is one of these "doesn't work" that come to analytical mind when presented in a short form and the reason this idea is not more popular. It would be, if the ranking would be global and not through the lens of your network. You can have the most popular coder A, he does lot's of video tutorials and blogs. But you have your finely cured network regarding this technology because you are pro yourself. You kn…

That still doesn't get rid of the popularity contest aspect. You are making an assumption that humans can make perfectly rational decisions most of the time, much less all of the time. The unfortunate reality is that we all influenced by non rational factors as a result of how our brains evolved

Yes, you can't escape that unless you use some AI agent. I don't say I have solution for that.

Once again, using it to "rate coders" is just one of use cases, but I'll stick to it for the sake of this argument.

So you need a DBA. There's one here that could work for you. You can check data online about him, but you don't know who wrote it. You ask your friends around. Some guy you barely knows says he's a fraud. One of your friends says he worked with him and he's good. You're best friend doesn't know him, but his friend, who he trusts, says he's great.

This is how you build your opinion about people (I'm aware it's a simplification but it's not relevant here). The mechanics doesn't change. Just the technology. But it's a leap as big as switching from snail mail to e-mail.

How much you trust some information depends on where it comes from. But it doesn't always come directly from the trusted source. So you use your trusted sources to learn about this information source.

You also learn to lessen your trust in sources that turned out to lead you to some bad information. It's not always easy to keep it all in your head. Business people learn to master that skill because that's the algorithm that works for acquiring trustworthy information and information is money. However not everybody's live revolves about building network of great contacts and staying in touch with them polling for some useful data.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#259

Post by Zarath » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 7:06 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #212

wumpus wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's one big difference, and it's Orwellian -- courts and politicians are claiming that removing something from a search engine isn't censorship.

Yup, essentially "we're not blocking any content, just blocking any means for you to find it".

To be fair, those are two different things.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#260

Post by hahainternet » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #160

izacus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not how a lot of EU countries function - which is why there's friction there. The American "You are a criminal for life and will eternally be punished!" attitude is clashing with an EU mindset of being able to start a new life. Permanent records are hugely damaging for persons livelihood in these cases.

>Permanent records are hugely damaging for persons livelihood in these cases. I agree and I'm not debating the harm that can be done. (My comment got many downvotes so I assume they think I believe felons should never be given a 2nd chance.) No, my comment is specifically about the framework for arguing . I'm saying that phrases such as "forgive" and "pay debt to society" are unconvincing since society has never univ…

> why do they have a sex offender registry?

We have a Violent and Sex Offender Register: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_and_Sex_Offender_Regis...

It is not public, it exists to facilitate Police intelligence.