Right to be Forgotten or Right to be Forgiven?

“In a nonappealable ruling, the European Court of Justice gave individuals the right to redact results on searches of their names — for wrong information, out-of-date information and, it seems too, just unflattering information. This new right — immediately enforceable — presumably extends to politicians, and perhaps corporations, if not governments. In other words, it’s the end pretty much of search as we know it. Or, arguably, it is the end for Europe — serviced by denuded search engines (the ruling applies to all search engines) and kept from knowing what the rest of the world knows.” – Michael Wolff

A small part of me cheered when I first read about the ruling in Europe – yes, citizens can actually have control of their privacy and online identities! Yes, this large juggernaut of a company with so many resources will finally be pushed to use some of it’s capital to help people trying to reclaim their lives after it’s been tarnished online! But I thought about it. I thought about American ideals about the free market and free speech and it reminded me of my own idealistic dream – the right to be forgiven.

As the article linked above states, Americans care about having access to information. Free expression has been woven into the fabric of this country and citizens believe that having information (even if it is handed to them through one major gatekeeper) will benefit them more than not having it all. These are things I believe. And this has caused the EU and US to butt heads over how to uphold privacy (a principle having different weights in each region). There are many articles talking about the difficulty of reconciling the EU’s and US’s perspectives on the “right to be forgotten” because each group comes from very different backgrounds informing how they want to protect their citizens. But for me, although dealing with companies that primarily conduct business over the Internet means that there should some sort of international standard, I’ve spent time pondering what can practically be done to help people growing up on in the United States deal with having their personal lives splashed all over the web.

Legislators have seriously considered the idea of allowing children, or potentially new adults, to erase search results leading to things posted online in a moment of youthful folly, but that solution, just like the right to be forgotten, doesn’t completely lead to the end result one hopes for when proposing these policies – the ability  to never be harmed by things posted online. While forcing the primary gatekeepers to this information to delete search results probably has a profound affect on diminishing the chances of that information coming to light, it doesn’t remove it. The articles and pictures one hopes to forget and never see again are still online. They may continue to be organized in internal website searches. Deleting a search result doesn’t delete the memories of acquaintances that recall that one time you did that one thing and it spread through your friend group online like wildfire. Getting rid of search results doesn’t get rid of information (although it will bury it). What I hope is that, like criminal records for those under the age of 18 are sealed, the digital artifacts of one’s life from the time they were younger than 18 (or 25, when the judgement center of our minds finish developing) can’t be used to discriminate against an individual. Just like an employer shouldn’t make a decision influenced by race, gender or age when looking at job candidates (although these factors can be discovered and unconsciously influence an employer after a quick Google search), maybe they shouldn’t be able to judge you based on your youthful indiscretions.

There is one huge difference of course – we try to provide equal employment opportunities so that people are not discriminated against for things about their person that are out of their control. And some may say you can control your digital identity but with each individual becoming a publisher, I’m not so sure how true that is anymore. A right to be forgiven or a protection from discrimination falls more in line with the fundamental value of free speech. People can publish what they want about each other but we can change how we react to it. Although learning proper online reputation management skills will go a long way in giving young people a chance to not be influenced by one or two early bad decisions, at the end of the day I’d rather know that I will be forgiven than hope that my digital mistakes are completely forgotten/hidden as I try to carve out a career and an adult life.

In all honesty, I have no idea how feasible this idea is. And considering some of the crazy, disrespectful, harmful things some people post online, I’m not sure we should turn a blind eye to everything done before one is 18 (although I hope the law comes into play at the time of action if what a kid does is truly despicable). But I think this line of thinking may still be the future.