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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

Why are we only forcing Google to remove this information when, as you say, it will still be in the public record.

Because ease of access makes all the difference, and it is disingenuous to argue otherwise.

This law won't protect Trump from having his bankruptcies reported but it will protect someone who made a stupid mistake when they were younger having it haunt them for the rest of their careers or lives because it would otherwise have been the top hit when you google'd their name. It will still be there for anyone willing to put in the effort to find it of course. Just like it was in the old days.

Google will happily ruin that person's life forever for a few cents in ad clicks. Think about that.

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>it will protect someone who made a stupid mistake when they were younger having it haunt them for the rest of their careers or lives because it would otherwise have been the top hit when you google'd their name.

I don't agree that this will protect anyone, or that they need to be protected in the first place. This is just hiding the problem that someone would judge you for whatever the content is.

In my opinion the real solution here is to be more understanding to stupid things people have done in the past. Nobody is perfect, so why are you letting whatever that story on Google is affect your judgement of the person, assuming they learned from whatever it was.

>I don't agree that this will protect anyone, or that they need to be protected in the first place. This is just hiding the problem that someone would judge you for whatever the content is.

You can't deny that the advent of social media has brought about a MUCH bigger problem of people getting fired, judged, or their lives ruined by stupid mistakes, posts online of a single comment they made, etc. These things aren't _new_ occurrences. People have always made stupid remarks; people have always done stupid things. The difference now is that it's trivially easy for me to go find some idiotic thing you did as a teenage that you've outgrown, and point to it as a way to ruin your life if I want to. All it would cost me is a little money to Google or Facebook. Back in the day, an attempt to truly ruin someone's life like this would require _digging_. If the person deserves it to happen to them (which is almost never), then people will go through the effort. But for the casual assholes who think it funny to SWAT someone or to call up embarrassing photos because that person called them a bad word, this barrier to entry would prevent them from doing something about it.

> You can't deny that the advent of social media has brought about a MUCH bigger problem of people getting fired, judged, or their lives ruined by stupid mistakes, posts online of a single comment they made, etc.

I only heard about this anecdotally. Do you have any data on such a huge increase in firings etc.? That would be quite interesting.

Maybe one day a stint at Google (or Facebook or Uber) will be the red flag that impacts someone's career, "smart, but no regard for user's privacy, think we'll pass on this candidate". They are rapidly heading that way.

By that same token, it's much easier to discover who the real idiots, bigots, assholes, etc. are, and then to apply appropriate social sanctions. It may suck for some people, but if we keep these people visible, then eventually maybe there will be fewer of them.

Everyone can make stupid mistakes, and the amount of repercussions that you can end up with can be really small or really big regardless of the actual significance of what you said or what you did, because the world does not hold a single, consistent set of morals and opinions, nor are we good at passing judgement in a fair and consistent manner.

Furthermore, context matters, but context is the first thing that gets lost online.

Something that was said or done in one context can be perfectly fine in that context while at the same time that thing can be completely unacceptable in another context.

We need not and we should not strive to keep a record of everything. It is important that we are able to forget.

The world at large is not capable of ensuring due process. Real lives of innocent people are ruined. People are driven to suicide. All because the public formed a narrative about someone based on incomplete or otherwise inaccurate information.

I wish for compassion and forgiveness.

real idiots, bigots, assholes, etc

One tweet taken out of context we’ve seen many examples of is enough to ignite an epic shitstorm. No. You’re just proposing further destruction of public discourse and civility.

That's not really the way business works, though. If one of your employees is the top result on Google for a dumb meme, it could be a liability to the business' image with clients. Hence, you don't take the risk of hiring them over someone else, even if the dumb memer is more qualified and a better fit overall. It simply wouldn't be worth the risk if there's other, less qualified but less risky, potential hires.

this is why anti discrimination laws exist, work on applying that.

There's good discrimination and bad discrimination from hiring perspective. Every company should discriminate their employees they want to hire, just not based on gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. There's no laws about discriminating against people with less experience or worse public images, and shouldn't be.

anti discrimination laws are only relevant to protected classes in the states, as far as i know, and "did something stupid when they were younger" is not one

> In my opinion the real solution here is to be more understanding to stupid things people have done in the past.

If you think the real solution is to change the way the world thinks about, and judges, everyone else then you're being remarkably naive.

> If you think the real solution is to change the way the world thinks about, and judges, everyone else then you're being remarkably naive.

This isn't a response, it's an insult. Two well educated, equally experienced people can come two two seperate conclusions, without one being "naive". Try and argue always assuming that the person your taking to is equally intelligent as you.

Regardless, treating the symptom (Search engines displaying old news stories) of the problem (people judging others irrationally), without treating the problem itself will only cause equally bad, if not worse, issues to pop up elsewhere. The vast majority of times a state censors information, it ends up being harmful far past what was initially intended (the red scare/McCarthyism, DMCA, FOSTA, SOPA/PIPA, etc).

>Because ease of access makes all the difference,

But every inconvenience presents a business opportunity that will inevitably be seized upon so long as the information being sought after is still considered part of the public record. The public record consists of all information that the public has a right to know. A more honest solution would actually declare certain information privileged and make it illegal for websites to publicize it.

Isn't this eerily close to a right to be forgiven, which is not at all a right? If you make a stupid mistake when you're young, then what's wrong with me judging you for the rest of your life? The Government shouldn't hide the knowledge from me because they think I ought to give you another chance, that should be up to me to decide.

By that argument the government shouldn’t allow you to have an anonymous nickname on a web forum either. You’re denying everyone their right to judge you, aren’t you?

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