[VBprogrammer]

I was thinking about the right to be forgotten just the other day. It reminds me of the line "democracy is the worst form of government, except from all of the others which we've tried".

Imagine a young person who gets wrapped up in some illegal activity. 30 years later settled down with a wife and kids he goes for a job interview and the person across the desk happens to have googled his name. That to me doesn't feel fair, people should have the ability to avoid their past haunting them forever.

Pre-internet the problem was naturally solved. The interviewer could have dug back through all of the local newspapers and happened upon an article but that's incredibly unlikely. Maybe if he was running for public office it might be uncovered.

The other side is that politicians and millionaires can use it to hide their dirty secrets. Nothing is perfect though so maybe that is the price we pay.

[Hitton]

The question is if you should defend the rights of the past offenders or current potential victim. Sure, there might be repercussions for past conduct, but at the end just one person is responsible for it. On the other hand you have potential victims who can't protect themselves by doing background check on potential perpetrator. If you prevent the victim from taking reasonable precautions, aren't you at least a little bit complicit?

[cirno]

"Potential victim" sounds a lot like precrime in Minority Report.

Either people are once a criminal, always a criminal and should be permanently extricated from society; or people have the ability to grow and deserve a second chance at a normal life.

I believe in the latter, as does the justice system that lets people go after their time is served (barring sex offender registries, at least). And I understand that yes, sometimes, we get it wrong and a person reoffends. Life is messy and sometimes unfair, but we have to strike a balance and take some risk sometimes.

I further believe that if a person is able to put their criminality behind them, the recidivism rate will drop. If you deny them gainful employment because Google decided a news article from 20 years ago is the most relevant thing about a person, which biases all future potential employers against recruiting him, then I believe they will have far less to lose and are more likely, right or wrong, to take upon them the mindset that, "if you're going to treat me like a criminal, then I am going to act like one!"

[cortesoft]

So you don't think a person deciding whether to go on a date with someone deserves to know they were convicted of rape 15 years ago?

> Life is messy and sometimes unfair, but we have to strike a balance and take some risk sometimes.

I don't think we should choose what risks someone else has to take. If someone has a rule 'I will never, ever, date anyone who has ever raped anyone', who are we to tell them, "Nope, sorry..... you don't get to have that rule for yourself.... we have decided for you"

[viklove]

> or people have the ability to grow and deserve a second chance at a normal life.

Yes, and I should have the ability to judge wether or not they've grown and changed, but I can't do that if I'm not even aware they committed crimes in the past.

[VBprogrammer]

What about someone who was raped wanting to have the details of that rape de-indexed?

[VBprogrammer]

Honestly I'm not sure. If you don't allow someone the opportunity to reform aren't you strong arming then into continuing their criminal behaviour?

[Hitton]

I'm not denying ability to reform to anyone, they just will have to forthcoming about their past and persuade the other party that they have changed and to give them a chance. Definitely better than for instance giving child molester chance to molest another child, defrauder to defraud another victim and so on.

[VBprogrammer]

I think child molestation and other sexual offences are normally dealt with via alternative means. In the UK there is a sex offenders register as well as background checks for people working with children etc.

[__m]

Like a social credit score?

[Hitton]

Are you trolling? How is erasing past related to social credit score?

[SamReidHughes]

Or you could stop trying to be in control of everything.