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Comment by komali2 | Hacker News Reader

As I recall from "The man who spent 100,000$ to remove himself from google," the "right to be forgotten" specifically targets falsehoods and lies.

So no, Trump's bankruptcies won't be forgotten in this system, but a false accusation of child molestation can be.

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I think the "right to be forgotten" law has larger scope than that actually, although I'm definitely not a lawyer.

> After a request is filled, their removals team reviews the request, weighing "the individual's right to privacy against the public's right to know", deciding if the website is "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten

Why the team in google has right to decide whether someone's privacy is worth more or less than some public interest?

Because someone has to. We can't have a world where I can just declare any search result violates my privacy, and Google isn't allowed to say I'm wrong.

Seems sensible to me.

But these guys were convicted of these crimes, no? That makes this information that's trying to be removed in this case pretty clearly not a lie. Unless i'm missing something here.

I think i'm cautiously in favor of the standard you propose though, if that is indeed the standard.

There were stories about people that spent years in jail, but at some point new evidence was found clearing them. I believe these people deserve the things they were wrongly accused of, to be forgotten.

I know of someone who's managed to rewrite the history of how his business came into being and its later success through a combination of 'right to be forgotten' and promotional pieces in the media.

There used to be plenty of material contradicting his version of events (which I know to be factual) but, today, you can't find any of it.

You could say all this material was 'falsehood and lies' but, in the absence of any public record, who is the arbiter of truth here?

Seems to me, it's whoever has the money to do it?

We already have laws to address falsehoods and lies (libel/slander).

This whole "right to be forgotten" thing just seems like a good way for wealthy people to hide inconvenient facts from public view. If it was really about falsehoods and lies, why wouldn't they go to court with the existing laws?

In yesterday's article, because the person submitting stuff was not in the United States. The reason the victim had to spend 100,000$ on legal fees was because of how difficult it was to get jurisdiction.

If the US based Google was responsible, it would be easier for people without that kind of money to protect themselves, wouldn't it?

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