You
may have heard that France has a law called “the right to be forgotten,” where
Google and major search engines are required to scrub certain information on
certain people. Individuals can request
that links don’t appear in connection to things such as past criminal
convictions, embarrassing photos, or malicious posts about them. For instance, a teen who commits a crime and
has his record expunged by the courts could request that any link to this story
not appear once he gets the arrest record expunged. Or if an ex-spouse publishes nude selfies of
the woman he stalks, links to those images will not come up. Questions of
censorship and the right to know have been played out in France, but now the
issue may extend to America.
A
French commission is now saying it’s not enough for Google to wipe the slate
clean in France. It may be required to
do so around the globe for any French citizen.
After all, someone doing a background check on a French citizen could
call upon a computer in the U.S. to see what really needs to be known about
that person.
Should
the rules of one nation be used to control another country?
Why
should Americans be forced to live under the regulations of France? What if France said links to certain sites,
viewpoints, books, or media need to also be banned – would we have to do the
same?
China
has its censorship claws out there. So
do some other countries. The last thing
we should do is be like them. We should,
however, make Google put a warning label next to all search results that
says: "Warning: Search results may not accurately reflect all
information that has been published online."
There
should be a “right to explain your side” law, where any link to anything about
a person also provides a brief response from the person who’s the subject of
the content. For instance, I should have
the right to say a story is inaccurate, or that a tweet is a lie, or that an
image posted was photoshopped, or that content was hacked or that there’s a legal proceeding attached to the content.
We
also need “right to accuracy” laws.
Content gets posted all of the time that passes opinion for fact or that
shares an opinion based on incorrect facts. Whether by accident or intent, too
much content is circulating online that simply is not true, out of context,
misleading, or missing key pieces of information. We need things to be posted that are
fact-checked and clearly labeled as “news” vs. “opinion,” or “fact-confirmed”
vs. “unsubstantiated.”
People
should not have to be burdened by false information. We rely more and more on the Internet for
everything, from finding jobs and dates to getting health or financial
advice. Before we just take information
off the Net because another country demands it, let’s figure out how to best label, counter, and
review the content that is out there.
The more we understand about the materials circulating online, the less
we’ll have to worry about censoring searches and manipulating who sees what.
Recent Posts
The Trump University of Book Promotions
The Author PR Priority List
Rights of Cheating Spouses vs. First Amendment On Display
Can authors audit their writing like they do their taxes?
What is America’s actual reading capacity?
http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2016/03/what-is-americas-reading-capacity.html
Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2016
2016 Book Marketing & Book Publicity Toolkit
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.