NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] The "Right to Be Forgotten": A Threat We Dare Not Forget
The "Right to Be Forgotten": A Threat We Dare Not Forget
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000938.html
Imagine that you're conducting a Google Search for "Beatles" -- but
mysteriously, the only results you receive are links to official,
authorized pages for their song downloads and related corporate
promotional materials. Or perhaps you enter a search for "Rick
Santorum" -- but the search results are all links to pages on his
official campaign website. Maybe a simple query regarding "John F.
Kennedy" provides lots of details about his official presidential
papers, but not a single link to information about his reported
extramarital activities that we know about today. Or do we know about
them? After all, if they're not in the search results, perhaps they
don't exist. Right?
Wrong! But there are governments, individuals, and organizations who
would very much like to make "disappearing search results" scenarios
come true on a vast scale, creating a new form of censorship that
would make previous censorship efforts -- on and off the Internet --
pale by comparison.
We know that search engines like Google are required to abide by
valid, legal orders concerning the removal of search results. To
date, these have been relatively limited in terms of scope, though
there are already many egregious examples of what most of us would
probably agree are inappropriate takedown orders.
The thankfully now moribund SOPA and PIPA legislation would likely
have mandated the removal of search results involving the location of
materials that the MPAA, RIAA, and other groups felt were illicit, and
in the process would have done enormously wide damages across the Net.
But at least SOPA/PIPA supporters weren't trying to erase from memory
even the existence of those songs and films! They obviously didn't
want us to forget that The Beatles were a great group, or that
"Citizen Kane" is a wonderful film.
Today though, governments around the world and allied pressure groups,
especially in Europe but also elsewhere, even here in the U.S., are
pushing a dangerous censorship concept much more akin to Stalin's
alteration and censorship of photos than to even the controls envisioned
by SOPA and PIPA ( http://j.mp/yZ7wA0 [Wikipedia] ).
Generally called the "right to be forgotten" (RTBF), this ultimately
insidious concept embodies the view that governments, corporations,
other organizations -- and individuals -- should have what amounts to
absolute control over related publicly available information,
especially in search engine results.
Note that our key words here are "publicly available." By and large
we're not talking about private data, we're talking about information
on public websites that particular individuals or other entities would
prefer didn't show up in associated search results.
The theory seems simple. If you can dictate and micromanage (for
example) Google Search results, you hope to prevent searchers from
finding unfavorable information about you, whether true or false.
Various types of situations where the "right to be forgotten" has already
been invoked includes people acquitted of crimes who had highly
publicized trials, doctors trying to suppress complaints from upset
patients, a resort unhappy that stories of a fire disaster from
decades ago are still associated with their location, and (much more
sympathetically) individuals who are the target of websites that were
created to harass, libel, or injure them in other ways.
The focus on search engines in these regards is a consequence of
several factors.
One issue is the reality that information on the Net, once available
publicly, can be virtually impossible to actually remove, given the
global availability of mirrors, archives, and other systems in various
jurisdictions that can copy and preserve virtually any data.
So -- the thinking goes -- rather than try actually taking actions
against the various websites that are the real publishers of the data
in question, targeting search engines make for more of a "one stop
shopping" regime, to try block people from finding the data even if
it's still really out there.
Another factor is that the legal bar can be high in some countries for
libel and other similar suits. So if governments can be convinced to
anoint essentially everyone with the right to demand censorship of any
search results that they feel relate unfavorably to themselves, that
much lower burden could be widely exploited.
It doesn't take more than a few minutes of thought to see the utterly
disastrous ramifications of the "right to be forgotten" approach, and
the cascading damage to free speech that could easily spread
malignantly across the global Internet as a result.
The crux of the matter is simple enough. Even if search engine
results are selectively expunged on demand, the "upsetting" material
in question will still likely exist on the Internet itself, still
subject to being located by other means, including via sites that
merely discuss related topics, situations, companies, or individuals.
This is a crucial point.
To be "forgotten" in the usual sense of the "right to be forgotten"
proponents would typically end up requiring not only that direct
references to sites containing "offending" materials be expunged from
search results, but also links to any sites that so much as
specifically (or in many cases even generally) discuss, critique,
analyze, or otherwise mention the materials in question, or that even
note the removal of the more direct links from search engine results
themselves!
So a site that so much as says, "A controversy arose about whether or
not Dr. Foo was providing quality health care, resulting in Google
being ordered to remove links to sites operated by those patients,"
could itself trigger an order that demanded the removal of links
mentioning the controversy involving Dr. Foo -- that he would prefer
be "forgotten."
Like ripples spreading from rocks tossed into a pond, the range of
directly and indirectly related sites whose links could be ordered
censored from search engine results will tend to spread, multiply, and
interact in complex ways, pulling ever more websites into "right to be
forgotten" censorship demands.
And for all that damaging censorship and invasive restrictions on
speech, the primary materials in question will likely still remain
easily available.
I do not accept as credible the claims of some "right to be forgotten"
proponents that just getting the top, main related links out of Google
Search results will be enough to satisfy them. It is inevitable that
as the reality of the complex network graph associated with such
information becomes obvious, calls for ever broader censorship orders,
targeting results and links increasingly "distant" from the core
sites, will be forthcoming in massive numbers, in a gigantic,
nightmarish version of search results "Whac-A-Mole."
The only rational approach to the kinds of disputes invoked by "right
to be forgotten" advocates should not be censorship, and should not be
attempts to delete information and references to that information.
Rather, we should be concentrating on providing more information, more
context in case of disputes, not less ( http://j.mp/dOE4Vw [Lauren's Blog] ).
While the "right to be forgotten" may at first glance seem to have
laudable goals, it is in truth an impractical and ultimately abusive
concept, that cannot realistically accomplish its stated goals, but
that would inevitably do enormous damage to the valid speech rights of
an ever widening sphere of organizations and individuals around the
world.
It is a dangerous Chimera that would create vast new problems, not
solve existing ones.
The right to be forgotten is a threat that we dare not forget, but
that we should most soundly and totally reject.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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