{"id":3625,"date":"2014-11-24T22:44:11","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T22:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/?p=3625"},"modified":"2014-11-24T22:44:11","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T22:44:11","slug":"internet-memory-hole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/blog\/2014\/11\/internet-memory-hole\/","title":{"rendered":"The Internet Memory Hole – Article by Wendy McElroy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/div>\n
Wendy McElroy
\n<\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
November 24, 2014<\/big><\/span><\/div>\n
******************************<\/div>\n
\n

Imagine you are considering a candidate as a caregiver for your child. Or maybe you are vetting an applicant for a sensitive position in your company. Perhaps you\u2019re researching a public figure for class or endorsing him in some manner. Whatever the situation, you open your browser and assess the linked information that pops up from a search. Nothing criminal or otherwise objectionable is present, so you proceed with confidence. But what if the information required for you to make a reasoned assessment had been removed by the individual himself?<\/p>\n

Under \u201cthe right to be forgotten<\/a>,\u201d a new “human right” established in the European Union in 2012, people can legally require a search engine to delete links to their names<\/a>, even if information at the linked source is true and involves a public matter such as an arrest. The Google form for requesting removal<\/a> asks the legally relevant question of why the link is \u201cirrelevant, outdated, or otherwise objectionable.\u201d Then it is up to the search engine to determine whether to delete the link.<\/p>\n

The law\u2019s purpose is to prevent people from being stigmatized for life. The effect, however, is to limit freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and access to information. Each person becomes a potential censor who can rewrite history for personal advantage.<\/p>\n

It couldn’t happen here<\/strong><\/p>\n

The process of creating such a law in the United States is already underway. American law is increasingly driven by public opinion and polls. The IT security company Software Advice<\/a> recently conducted a survey that found that \u201csixty-one percent of Americans believe some version of the right to be forgotten is necessary,\u201d and \u201cthirty-nine percent want a European-style blanket right to be forgotten, without restrictions.\u201d And politicians love to give voters what they want.<\/p>\n

In January 2015, California will enforce the Privacy Rights for California Minors in the Digital World<\/a> law. This is the first state version of a “right to be forgotten” law<\/a>. It requires \u201cthe operator of an Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application to permit a minor, who is a registered user \u2026 to remove, or to request and obtain removal of, content or information posted \u2026 by the minor.\u201d (There are some exceptions.)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the consumer-rights group Consumer Watchdog has floated the idea that Google should voluntarily provide Americans with the right to be forgotten<\/a>. On September 30, 2014, Forbes<\/em> stated, \u201cThe fight for the right to be forgotten<\/a> is certainly coming to the U.S., and sooner than you may think.\u201d For one thing, there is a continuing hue and cry about embarrassing photos of minors and celebrities being circulated.<\/p>\n

Who and what deserves to be forgotten?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What form would the laws likely take? In the Stanford Law Review<\/a> <\/em>(February 13, 2012), legal commentator Jeffrey Rosen presented three categories of information that would be vulnerable if the EU rules became a model. First, material posted could be \u201cunlinked\u201d at the poster’s request. Second, material copied by another site could \u201calmost certainly\u201d be unlinked at the original poster’s request unless its retention was deemed \u201cnecessary\u201d to \u201cthe right of freedom of expression.\u201d Rosen explained, \u201cEssentially, this puts the burden on\u201d the publisher to prove that the link \u201cis a legitimate journalistic (or literary or artistic) exercise.\u201d Third, the commentary of one individual about another, whether truthful or not, could be vulnerable. Rosen observed that the EU includes \u201ctakedown requests for truthful information posted by others.\u2026 I can demand takedown and the burden, once again, is on the third party to prove that it falls within the exception for journalistic, artistic, or literary exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

Search engines have an incentive to honor requests rather than to absorb the legal cost of fighting them. Rosen said, \u201cThe right to be forgotten could make Facebook and Google, for example, liable for up to two percent of their global income if they fail to remove photos that people post about themselves and later regret, even if the photos have been widely distributed already.\u201d An October 12, 2014, article in the UK Daily Mail<\/em> indicated the impact of compliance on the free flow of public information. The headline: \u201cGoogle deletes 18,000 UK links under ‘right to be forgotten’ laws in just a month: 60% of Europe-wide requests come from fraudsters, criminals and sex offenders<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

American backlash<\/strong><\/p>\n

America protects the freedoms of speech and the press more vigorously than Europe does. Even California’s limited version of a “right to be forgotten” bill<\/a> has elicited sharp criticism from civil libertarians and tech-freedom advocates. The IT site TechCrunch expressed the main practical objection: \u201cThe web is chaotic, viral, and interconnected. Either the law is completely toothless, or it sets in motion a very scary anti-information snowball.\u201d TechCrunch also expressed the main political objection: The bill \u201cappears to create a head-on collision between privacy law and the First Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conflict between untrue information and free speech need not occur. Peter Fleischer, Google\u2019s global privacy counsel<\/a>, explained, \u201cTraditional law has mechanisms, like defamation and libel law, to allow a person to seek redress against someone who publishes untrue information about him.\u2026 The legal standards are long-standing and fairly clear.\u201d Defamation and libel are controversial issues within the libertarian community, but the point here is that defense against untrue information already exists.<\/p>\n

What of true information? Truth is a defense against being charged with defamation or libel. America tends to value freedom of expression above privacy rights. It is no coincidence that the First Amendment is first<\/em> among the rights protected by the Constitution. And any “right” to delete the truth from the public sphere runs counter to the American tradition of an open public square where information is debated and weighed.<\/p>\n

Moreover, even true information can have powerful privacy protection. For example, the Fourth Amendment prohibits the use of data that is collected via unwarranted search and seizure. The Fourteenth Amendment is deemed by the Supreme Court to offer a general protection to family information. And then there are the “protections” of patents, trade secrets, copyrighted literature, and a wide range of products that originate in the mind. Intellectual property is controversial, too. But again, the point here is that defenses already exist.<\/p>\n

Reputation capital<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reputation capital consists of the good or bad opinions that a community holds of an individual over time. It is not always accurate, but it is what people think. The opinion is often based on past behaviors, which are sometimes viewed as an indicator of future behavior. In business endeavors, reputation capital is so valuable that aspiring employees will work for free as interns in order to accrue experience and recommendations. Businesses will take a loss to replace an item or to otherwise credit a customer in order to establish a name for fairness. Reputation is thus a path to being hired and to attracting more business. It is a nonfinancial reward for establishing the reliability and good character upon which financial remuneration often rests.<\/p>\n

Conversely, if an employee’s bad acts are publicized, then a red flag goes up for future employers who might consider his application. If a company defrauds customers, community gossip could drive it out of business. In the case of negative reputation capital, the person or business who considers dealing with the \u201creputation deficient\u201d individual is the one who benefits by realizing a risk is involved. Services, such as eBay, often build this benefit into their structure by having buyers or sellers rate individuals. By one estimate, a 1 percent negative rating can reduce the price of an eBay good by 4 percent<\/a>. This system establishes a strong incentive to build positive reputation capital.<\/p>\n

Reputation capital is particularly important because it is one of the key answers to the question, \u201cWithout government interference, how do you ensure the quality of goods and services?\u201d In a highly competitive marketplace, reputation becomes a path to success or to failure.<\/p>\n

Right-to-be-forgotten laws offer a second chance to an individual who has made a mistake. This is a humane option that many people may choose to extend, especially if the individual will work for less money or offer some other advantage in order to win back his reputation capital. But the association should be a choice. The humane nature of a second chance should not overwhelm the need of others for public information to assess the risks involved in dealing with someone. Indeed, this risk assessment provides the very basis of the burgeoning sharing economy.<\/p>\n

History and culture are<\/strong> memory<\/strong><\/p>\n

In \u201cThe Right to Be Forgotten: An Insult to Latin American History<\/a>,\u201d Eduardo Bertoni offers a potent argument. He writes that the law\u2019s \u201cname itself\u201c is \u201can affront to Latin America; rather than promoting this type of erasure, we have spent the past few decades in search of the truth regarding what occurred during the dark years of the military dictatorships.\u201d History is little more than preserved memory. Arguably, culture itself lives or dies depending on what is remembered and shared.<\/p>\n

And yet, because the right to be forgotten has the politically seductive ring of fairness, it is becoming a popular view. Fleischer called privacy \u201cthe new black in censorship fashion.\u201d And it may be increasingly on display in America.<\/p>\n

Wendy McElroy (wendy@wendymcelroy.com<\/a>) is an author, editor of\u00a0ifeminists.com<\/a>, and Research Fellow at The Independent Institute (independent.org<\/a>).<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was originally published by The Foundation for Economic Education<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wendy McElroy November 24, 2014 ****************************** Imagine you are considering a candidate as a caregiver for your child. Or maybe you are vetting an applicant for a sensitive position in your company. Perhaps you\u2019re researching a public figure for class or endorsing him in some manner. Whatever the situation, you open your browser and assess the linked information that pops up from a search. Nothing criminal or otherwise objectionable is present, so you proceed with confidence. But what if the…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,5],"tags":[441,3722,729,1297,1298,362,2806,706,171,3231,763,3723,305,25,3613],"class_list":["post-3625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice","category-politics","tag-censorship","tag-criticism","tag-european-union","tag-first-amendment","tag-free-expression","tag-free-speech","tag-human-rights","tag-individual-rights","tag-internet","tag-latin-america","tag-privacy","tag-right-to-be-forgotten","tag-truth","tag-united-states","tag-wendy-mcelroy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3626,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625\/revisions\/3626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}