What's going through the EU's mind right now? "This is clearly futile, not working and doesn't stand a chance in hell of working......so let's do more!"?
I mean, seriously, what will they be doing next? Asking all proxies, VPNs, and TOR to filter "right to be forgotten" search results. All airlines and airports offering international flights will require memory wipers to remove any "right to be forgotten knowledge" from your brain. All libraries, archives, repositories and public records offices will be re
Can't tell (not telepathic), but I'm in support of this right and I can tell you what I think: The Internet is full of half-truths and outright lies. Search engines do not deliver results based on the truth value of sites, but on popularity, page ranking and such. If, 10 years ago, you were arrested for child porn, with headlines in the newspapers. Three months later, charges were dropped, everyone apologized profoundly to you for the mistake, the government paid a ton of money for your troubles and the pro
The Internet is full of half-truths and outright lies. Search engines do not deliver results based on the truth value of sites, but on popularity, page ranking and such. If, 10 years ago, you were arrested for child porn, with headlines in the newspapers. Three months later, charges were dropped, everyone apologized profoundly to you for the mistake, the government paid a ton of money for your troubles and the prosecutor who go your arrested lost his job.
That sounds nice in theory, but your stance makes a few assumptions: 1) there is a perfect objective view of what the truth is and 2) the internet is not a dynamic, adaptive source of information. For point 1, people may have two different perspectives on what should and should not be public knowledge. For example, if a politician is caught for embezzling money, they may want to be forgotten to avoid further persecution and move on with their life. Voters in other regions may want to know and remember that factoid to avoid putting a historically dishonest person in power. I think both sides have some merit here.
For the second point, the internet is a highly adaptive and dynamic source of information. If you attempt to take information down, someone else may put it up anonymously somewhere else. How does one filter the good information from the bad? Or should we just remove any mention of the person by brute force? What if the person in question has a similar name to yours? This approach may censor potentially damaging information and it may also censor potentially useful information, like your resume or personal website. The-right-to-be-forgotten takes a naive and sometimes despotic approach to controlling information. And, it fails because it ignores the technical constraints to implementing such an idea.
Finally, you didn't need to invoke a variant of Godwin's law to discuss this topic. It's rich and complicated enough without bringing child pornography into it.
How does one filter the good information from the bad?
Academically? Untracktable problem.
Pragmatically? If you can't find it on Google, then for 99% of the Internet users, it doesn't exist.
it fails because it ignores the technical constraints to implementing such an idea.
I say it succeeds, because it takes a pragmatic, real-world approach to the issue and accepts that its solution is not 100% pure mathematical perfection. But in the real world, 99% or 95% or 80% or sometimes just 51% is sufficient.
For example, if a politician is caught for embezzling money,
This point is much stronger and better thought-out.
Yes, in an ideal world, we could guarantee that the search results return a balanced view of th
The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to
the left.
This is clearly futile... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, seriously, what will they be doing next? Asking all proxies, VPNs, and TOR to filter "right to be forgotten" search results. All airlines and airports offering international flights will require memory wipers to remove any "right to be forgotten knowledge" from your brain. All libraries, archives, repositories and public records offices will be re
Re: (Score:4, Insightful)
What's going through the EU's mind right now?
Can't tell (not telepathic), but I'm in support of this right and I can tell you what I think: The Internet is full of half-truths and outright lies. Search engines do not deliver results based on the truth value of sites, but on popularity, page ranking and such. If, 10 years ago, you were arrested for child porn, with headlines in the newspapers. Three months later, charges were dropped, everyone apologized profoundly to you for the mistake, the government paid a ton of money for your troubles and the pro
Re:This is clearly futile... (Score:2)
The Internet is full of half-truths and outright lies. Search engines do not deliver results based on the truth value of sites, but on popularity, page ranking and such. If, 10 years ago, you were arrested for child porn, with headlines in the newspapers. Three months later, charges were dropped, everyone apologized profoundly to you for the mistake, the government paid a ton of money for your troubles and the prosecutor who go your arrested lost his job.
That sounds nice in theory, but your stance makes a few assumptions: 1) there is a perfect objective view of what the truth is and 2) the internet is not a dynamic, adaptive source of information. For point 1, people may have two different perspectives on what should and should not be public knowledge. For example, if a politician is caught for embezzling money, they may want to be forgotten to avoid further persecution and move on with their life. Voters in other regions may want to know and remember that factoid to avoid putting a historically dishonest person in power. I think both sides have some merit here.
For the second point, the internet is a highly adaptive and dynamic source of information. If you attempt to take information down, someone else may put it up anonymously somewhere else. How does one filter the good information from the bad? Or should we just remove any mention of the person by brute force? What if the person in question has a similar name to yours? This approach may censor potentially damaging information and it may also censor potentially useful information, like your resume or personal website. The-right-to-be-forgotten takes a naive and sometimes despotic approach to controlling information. And, it fails because it ignores the technical constraints to implementing such an idea.
Finally, you didn't need to invoke a variant of Godwin's law to discuss this topic. It's rich and complicated enough without bringing child pornography into it.
Re: (Score:3)
How does one filter the good information from the bad?
Academically? Untracktable problem.
Pragmatically? If you can't find it on Google, then for 99% of the Internet users, it doesn't exist.
it fails because it ignores the technical constraints to implementing such an idea.
I say it succeeds, because it takes a pragmatic, real-world approach to the issue and accepts that its solution is not 100% pure mathematical perfection. But in the real world, 99% or 95% or 80% or sometimes just 51% is sufficient.
For example, if a politician is caught for embezzling money,
This point is much stronger and better thought-out.
Yes, in an ideal world, we could guarantee that the search results return a balanced view of th