Honestly, I don't understand how anybody can honestly think that there can or should be a "right to be forgotten." These laws are an abomination of freedom of information and are incredibly naive.
Before the Internet, people eventually forgot what mistakes you made in the past. If there were records, not everyone had access to them and they eventually expired.
Don't you see the problem when every mistake you ever made, or even wrongfully made accusations against you, can be found by anyone, indefinitely, by simply entering your name into a search engine?
Let's say there is a nude picture of you on the Internet, or something else that is embarrassing to you. It can be found by anyone by entering your name into Google. You can't do anything about it. It keeps you from getting that job you want, from now till the end of your life. Because of that one mistake you made years ago. How would you like that?
I'm also critical of these laws because they can be abused, but in general, I support the idea that some information should expire from the collective memory eventually.
<raises hand> The ex-classics-major in the audience would like to beg to differ. Would you like to know about the many foibles of graeco-roman politicians, writers and soldiers? Because I can tell you things they would likely LOVE to be forgotten now (e.g. any of Catullus's poems regarding his opinions on plagiarism by his peers, and the involvement of rectally delivered "spiky fruit" remediation.)
I think it's pretty black and white, the "right to be forgotten" is a complete and utter absurd slight against the fundamental concept of a cultural history. Such a right stands against tens of thousands of years of recorded social ephemera, which until this affront was generally seen as "quite an accomplishment." (for humanity)
And to make what should be an obvious point, I do not say this as someone without skeletons in my closet. I don't get to live those down, or assert someone "forget"; they are actions I took and they are now part of me, it's for me to demonstrate that I should no longer be judged by them.
(I never thought of all my posts one defending history as paramount to speech and/or accepting personal responsibility would be the one to get downvoted this hard, if I said something else stupid/illogical please at least let me know, because I'm both curious and entertained)
Well, here in Italy, a girl just committed suicide because of some revenge hard video that was published 2 years ago and that became very famous (meme-level famous, including people printing t-shirts, etc.). She tried to escape for 2 years, including trying to change her name. Eventually, she just couldn't handle it anymore.
I'd rather lose some accountability of past critical statements.
There are already libel laws to address lies much more thoroughly than making Google's job harder.
So-called right to be forgotten laws are as futile as DRM. I believe culturally we will adapt to the availability of this information. We can change our opinions about whether evidence of poor choices a long time ago means a candidate would be a poor hire. But the information still being available allows us to make more informed choices because maybe those poor choices a long time ago, along with more recent information, is relevant. The candidate knows this evidence exists and can contextualize it and/or compensate for it with evidence of better, more recent choices.
Applying libel laws are very theoretical on the internet. Joe is not going to sue Jack at the other end of the world in practice because of the outsized costs and efforts involved.
Anyway, assuming that there is, that country had made a conscious choice that in its jurisdiction, this is not a thing that they wish to suppress, for whatever reason. If you live in such a country and are unhappy about it, you can either work through its political system to change the law, or leave for a different country.
If you're already in a different country, you can sue for libel in that country, since that's where the damage (to your reputation) occurred.
If a company in the US puts something on their website about me that’s libel under German law, I still can’t get it pulled.
Yet, if I put up something that’s legal under German law but illegal under US law onto my website, my entire hoster is threatened by the US govt. unless they remove my presence.
The right to be forgotten only gives the EU citizen the power that US citizen already have: to apply their laws globally (despite only in very limited amounts and with careful interpretation – which can’t be said of the US laws)
I thought this way originally, but in the United Kingdom over the past few years there has been Operation Yewtree, which has in multiple instances called out a well known figure as being a child-molester, only to have to retract due to incorrectness (or correctness, and lack of evidence), and it has ruined a few careers.
I think the Internet should be able to retain veritable truth (and obvious satire) only, if there's clear evidence that something on the Internet is untrue and not clearly satire, then it should be possible to remove that information because it is potentially personally damaging.
Don't you see the problem when every mistake you ever made, or even wrongfully made accusations against you, can be found by anyone, indefinitely, by simply entering your name into a search engine?
Let's say there is a nude picture of you on the Internet, or something else that is embarrassing to you. It can be found by anyone by entering your name into Google. You can't do anything about it. It keeps you from getting that job you want, from now till the end of your life. Because of that one mistake you made years ago. How would you like that?
I'm also critical of these laws because they can be abused, but in general, I support the idea that some information should expire from the collective memory eventually.