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The US Vs. Europe: Freedom of Expression Vs. Privacy
First time accepted submitter GoddersUK (1262110) writes "Rory Cellan-Jones writes about the recent European Court judgement on the right to be forgotten in terms of US/EU cultural differences (and perhaps a bit of bitterness on the EU side at U.S. influence online): 'He tells me... ..."In the past if you were in Germany you were never worried that some encyclopedia website based in the United States was going to name you as a murderer after you got out of jail because that was inconceivable. Today that can happen, so the cultural gap that was always there about the regulation of speech is becoming more visible."... Europeans who have been told that the Internet is basically ungovernable — and if it does have guiding principles then they come from the land of the free — are expressing some satisfaction that court has refused to believe that.' And, certainly, it seems, here in the UK, that even MEPs keen on the principle don't really know how this ruling will work in practice or what the wider consequences will be. Video here."
I'm betting on Europe to win this time!
The problem is that some nations want to enforce their rules on other nations.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Create a couple of giant hubs in the Atlantic and Pacific, controlled by NOBODY. Let countries that want to hook up to them hook up to them, and then regulate their own internet however they like. But they don't get to govern what other people in other countries say. The very idea is pretty obvious, unworkable, globalist-statist nonsense.
if anyone cares about your worthless narcissistic ass, they would have been just as interested in the pre-Internet age. The fact that there is now an on-line encyclopedia really doesn't change anything. The media was quite free to 'slander' you in the past. They just would have done it in print or on TV. Either of those mediums can be propagated worldwide.
Also, anything involving you being incarcerated is not an issue of "privacy". It's a matter of public record and needs to be open and available for public audit.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
There are a large number of things that Europe "gets right".
Europe doesn't realize that privacy in theory becomes censorship in practice.
There are a large number of things that the USA "gets right".
The USA doesn't realize an *unregulated* free market without *PROPER* government supervision means all companies merge into one company and then do really shitty things.
Which form of stupid to do you prefer: ___________ >>--- fill in your choice.
(This is my view of what happens, in Europe ultimately there ends up being a Ministry of Censorship that results in websites warning about cookies and the plutocracy having more rights, while in the USA evil corporations end up being immune to government because they contribute $$$ to our broken political system.)
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
(and perhaps a bit of bitterness on the EU side at U.S. influence online)
Totally unbiased.
Europeans who have been told that the Internet is basically ungovernable — and if it does have guiding principles then they come from the land of the free — are expressing some satisfaction that court has refused to believe that.
And with good reason - it ungovernable unless you happen to be something like, say, a security agency or one of its corporate friends.
"The internet is so new that the law hasn't caught up with it but eventually it'll be regulated like every other aspect of society and that's quite right."
Yes, that's why our forefathers left Europe.
Google is too subject to international pressure. It is time for those interested in truth to move to a search engine that has no assets in Europe.
What about Duck Duck Go, does it have assets in Europe? What about other search engines?
Don't worry, the upcoming Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will fix that divergence by removing any European specific thing from Europe.
Two powers are trying to take control over the internet and neither is worthy of it.
The US overstepped its authority in wire tapping everything. The NSA needs to have reasonable limits placed upon it.
And Europe has no right to dictate what people say on the internet. This starts out with limiting pornography and hate speech... and then very quickly it becomes about shutting down political rivals or ideas you simply disagree with...
Both deserve to lose.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I plan to move to the US, the land of the free, because there is no freedom of speech in Greece and EU and I'm not allowed to take photos of people in the street and publish or sell them without their written permission. Photography has become illegal in Europe due to misguided "privacy" laws. It's just ridiculous that I cannot do street photography in Europe because the European governments have decided that we photographers should ask people before we take their photo or publish it! I want to become an American citizen and do my photography in the US because the American Constitution guarantees me freedom of speech.
Given that they basically don't pay tax it wouldn't be a great loss anyway. Maybe piss off the nsa and gchq. So could be a positive move all round. Win win!
Yes, it is coming up the the European elections over here, and this 'story' should be seen on that background: as a self-serving piece of propaganda from one of the wing-nuts.
...bitterness on the EU side at U.S. influence online.
Meh? I suspect most of us are not so much bitter at all as simply plain, old tired of American self-importance. The fact is that American influence is on the decline and has been for many years; any bitterness is probably on the American side. The Chinese are taking over as the great influencers of cultural and intetllectual expression, but these things always shift; it is only a few decades ago that it was Italy, UK, France or Germany.
Europeans who have been told that the Internet is basically ungovernable â" and if it does have guiding principles then they come from the land of the free...
Ask a real American if USA is the 'Land of the Free' any more, if ever it was. The internet is not ungovernable; there are many ways govern, and not all rely on legislation, democracy or use of weapons. The rulers of the internet are not national governments, but big corporations like Google, Facebook etc, who have a near monopoly on the most popular methods to access information. If you control the sources of information, you control people's minds. In Europe we have a very sound scepticism towards the wisdom of letting unelected corporations have that much power.
You are entirely too metaphysical for my tastes. I'm not sure that the theory about souls is the operative issue here.
This is my theory. The European view is based upon the notion of a supportive state. If a person has changed their life and behaviours, then the state is willing to support that change (funny how this only applies in cases where the earlier behaviour was bad and the new behaviour good. Let's not dwell on this though).
The US view is based upon historical facts. The person has their history and they may change. However it's other people's right to discover what that history is. Even if the story is controversial and contested, the dispute over the facts is itself part of the historical record.
What I cannot currently reconcile is that it is an accepted cultural truism that America is the land where people can reinvent themselves. Which appears to contradict the above??
A map to a grocery store is not a grocery store....
A newspaper article is a block of text and/or photos that conveys information about some event.
Google's search engines are directions on where to find that article.
While this is true in certain countries in certain circumstances (France and Spain come to mind) it is certainly not true in the UK.
So this isn't a Europe-wide problem, and definitely isn't the fault of the EU.
The US vs. Europe?
Correction: Europe vs Streisand Effect.
Good luck, dumbassess.
Erm, those arent actual laws....
I like being metaphysical too, and that somehow excludes me from your tastes. And, there is no accounting for taste. Wait..
Europeans who have been told that the Internet is basically ungovernable
The rulers of the internet are not national governments
Have you tried donating money to wiki leaks recently?
You really believe that guff don't you . Keep drinking the Kool aid.
Google has a job for you in the EU...
The line is not fuzzy and I do not see "the problem."
If you only have two buckets, "newspaper" and "search engine", where does an AP/Reuters archive fall?
Newspapers are getting more automated and search engines are getting more curated. A merging of the two is natural.
If google had no assets in Europe, it could shoot Europe the big finger,
Even without assets, they would risk any ad revenue coming from Europe. If there is a fine to be paid and no assets to recover, they can just contact everyone owing money to Google (like every advertiser) and tell them to make the payments to the EU instead of Google.
Google should keep indexing everything like normal, but for every link that falls afoul of this ruling, just post a red link saying "THIS CONTENT IS FORBIDDEN IN YOUR COUNTRY BY ORDER OF THE EUROPEAN COURT." Have the link go to the page explaining all of the possible reasons it was blocked, in great detail. Let the searcher wonder what could be so awful as to require such a block. Then post adwords links to criminal attorneys and bail bondsmen (or their European equivalents).
For added amusement, throw a few "FORBIDDEN" labels in the search results of every person involved in this case.
Which ever one of them they choose to be in, they are then subject to those rules.
If there is no editorial control on the results I do not see it as a news source but a data aggregator. Note I say data rather than information as the meaning of the data is largely ignored, let alone telling wether its then true, false or just makes no sense
There is no way to keep information of the net. Laws that attempt to do that are limp to the point that Viagra will not help. How about Europe getting the point that we all have to live with our past. We own that information as does everyone else in the community. And yes, if I am about to hire a person, date a girl, or make a loan or investment I do want to know all of the criminal history of the person in question. And yes, even if they were 13 years old when they butchered heir neighbor I still insist on that information being public and easily obtainable.
It would be the American's 1st Amendment. Freedom of the individual must prevail over all else. Authoritarians can suck it, and suck it hard.
And there is the problem. You believe that free speech should mean that you can say whatever you want without consequences, and that isn't a right. Never has been, and never should be. You are free to say pretty much what you want, but you must face the consequences for saying it. You should also note that free speech is about what the government can prohibit, while there is no such protection from what private or non-government entities can limit.
Please read your constitution and bills of rights.
And by those rules, slashdot must comply as well (assuming they have some relationship with something in the EU), as most of their articles are not much more than links back to other sites.
Yea, how dare I insist of people using my image commercially should have to ask my permission.
Its not a choice between "freedom of expression" and "privacy".
You are free to "express yourself" anyway you want until it affects a person's privacy.
Both Americans and Europeans value the former equally.
However it seems Americans - specifically American _corporations_ don't value the latter.
Really the argument is about whether a corporation is at liberty to make a buck by violating my privacy.
I say not.
Twisting the argument to make it about "freedom" for me just proves the point that corporations can't be trusted.
Look at the demographic that is pushing all these "tough on crime", "lock 'em up and throw away the key" policies. Then look at the heavily religious demographic. Then look at the overlap. I've even heard people argue that the risk of executing the wrong person is not a significant argument against the death penalty, because God will sort it all out in the end (and this from multiple sources - not just one whackjob but multiple unconnected individuals who clearly see this as a moral justification for their beliefs on how the real world should be run). There's no way you can claim that it's "anti-christian" people pushing this... ...unless you want to go for some kind of "no true Scotsman" argument that says the religious right aren't really Christians?
Where does Slashdot and reddit fall into these descriptions?
Maybe I'm just feeding a well-connected troll here, but I feel like someone has to point out that Christianity does not have a monopoly on morality, ethics, justice, or faith.
I guess petry just hit the right chord of Christians and rose-tinted "in my day" folks to get the +. Morons.
Just don't plan to take photos of bridges, Federal buildings or police officers once you get to the U.S.