EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google • Hacker News Board

Re: EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google

#11

Post by munificent » Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

pertinhower wrote: post #4

This is, among other things, a terribly confusing situation. Who's to blame? The person who asks to have results expunged? The law that requires Google to comply? Google for complying? Or no one—is the right thing being done, the "pen" of the Internet being dulled back into a pencil?

> The person who asks to have results expunged?

Yes.

> The law that requires Google to comply?

Yes.

> Google for complying?

No! How can you blame a company for doing something they are legally compelled to do?

> Or no one—is the right thing being done, the "pen" of the Internet being dulled back into a pencil?

The Internet has always been written in pencil. Pages stop being served all the time. The only difference is that now the index of the Internet is written in pencil, and every EU citizen has been given an eraser.

Re: EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google

#12

Post by vilhelm_s » Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 5:47 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #5

The interesting part of this, for me, is that the Guardian believes that a) Google has the power to put the genie back in the bottle (dubious, but reflective of Google's massive control of Internet navigation) and b) the Guardian would have the power to put the genie back in the bottle (absurd).

What do you mean by "putting the genie back into the bottle"?

Re: EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google

#13

Post by The_Pherocity » Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 5:51 PM UTC

I once thought that I could tell my children that I was born in a world without the internet. But if governments and corporations keep on this path, my children won't have one either.

Re: EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google

#14

Post by joeguilmette » Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 5:53 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #10

peterkelly wrote: post #6

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…

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, b…

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.

Re: EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google

#15

Post by munificent » Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 5:53 PM UTC

This article is pretty terrible. I think it's great that it's drawing attention to the problem, but it spends most of the time rallying an angry mob and pointing the pitchforks in the wrong direction:

> Guardian articles have been hidden by Google

> Editorial decisions belong with them, not Google

> But such editorial calls surely belong with publishers, not Google.

Google has done absolutely nothing wrong here. It is making zero editorial calls. It's removing links that were flagged for removal by someone outside of the company, and it is compelled to do so by EU law.

In fact, if you ignore the finger-pointing at Google, you'll see that Google actually tries really really hard to get around this: It informs you when results were blocked, notifies when results are blocked, blocks only the narrowest possible search terms, and helpfully points you to google.com which doesn't filter.

> Publishers can and should do more to fight back. One route may be legal action.

No, legal action is the only route. This is a matter of law.

Re: EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google

#16

Post by ganeumann » Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 5:58 PM UTC

It won't take long before a UK search for Dougie McDonald shows the article talking about how the articles about Dougie McDonald have been removed from Google, and what those articles are about.

Google tells the media which articles are being expunged, the media writes about the articles Google expunged and then Google indexes these pages in their search results. Interesting process.

Re: EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google

#17

Post by mccr8 » Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 6:02 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #15

This article is pretty terrible. I think it's great that it's drawing attention to the problem, but it spends most of the time rallying an angry mob and pointing the pitchforks in the wrong direction: > Guardian articles have been hidden by Google > Editorial decisions belong with them, not Google > But such editorial calls surely belong with publishers, not Google. Google has done absolutely nothing wrong here. It i…

Put down your Google pitchfork. The article is clearly not placing the blame on Google: "As for Google itself, it's clearly a reluctant participant in what effectively amounts to censorship." The second paragraph says this is the result of a court ruling.

If the most concerning thing to you about this article is that it doesn't spend enough time exonerating Google for their role in this, then I don't know what to tell you.

Re: EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google

#18

Post by Afforess » Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 6:02 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #10

peterkelly wrote: post #6

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…

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, b…

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

Re: EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google

#19

Post by cwyers » Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 6:04 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #10

peterkelly wrote: post #6

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…

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, b…

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.

Re: EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google

#20

Post by GauntletWizard » Wed, Jul 02, 2014, 6:08 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #10

peterkelly wrote: post #6

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…

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, b…

Today's BBC article thoroughly disproves your point: 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.