There is this general idea that internet doesn’t forget. It’s like an elephant whose ancestors died on the Western front.
But in May this year, the European Union finally put that idea to rest.
In a huge ruling the highest court in Europe ruled that Google and other search operators like it, must delete search results if they are requested. They are calling it “The right to be forgotten.”
Since then, Google has been petitioned over 250,000 times by a public that is eagerly hoping to go less public. Finally, this is a chance to wipe the digital slate clean, so no one needs to know that you illegally torrent drugs, snort movies, or at one point owned a onesie.
But last week, the mood… changed.
The Financial Times says these removals raise concerns over censorship.
Last week news organisations like the Guardian, the Daily Mail and the BBC were notified that a number of their news articles were no longer searchable online, taken down as part of the Right to be forgotten ruling.
Now the Right to Be Forgotten has the online community up in arms, legs and any number of other limbs that would seem to indicate people are rather annoyed. Some have even called it the modern equivalent of burning books.
Though given it’s not the articles being removed, but rather but the search results pointing to the articles, it’s much more like the modern equivalent of burning somewhat helpful librarians.
So now rather than the fight for privacy, this is the fight for censorship. But if you look past the hype, it’s a fight that’s not super effective.
Take for instance the man who started this whole forgetful internet movement. Spanish businessman Mario Costeja Gonzalez, or recently deceased actor James Gondolfini hiding in plain sight.
Annoyed that searching his own name would just bring up an article about an auction for his old house in 1998, Mr Gonzalez argued and won the right to have the Spanish news piece made unsearchable. It was a landmark case where one man managed to win back his right to privacy.
Of course thanks to this being a landmark case, googling Mr. Gonzalez today will bring up nearly 50,000 page results, with the vast majority of them making no small mention of the Spanish dude’s attempts to sell his house in 1998.
In fact all the online articles that Google pulled down have since been relinked, revisited and re-examined countless times. These five-year-old blogs and news stories targeted to be forgotten are getting more eyeballs than ever before.
At the end of the day the right to be forgotten is a lot of noise over the right to remain silent.
