Right To Be Forgotten? Web Privacy Debate in Italy After Women's Suicide (ndtv.com)

The suicide of a woman who battled for months to have a video of her having sex removed from the internet is fuelling debate in Italy on the "right to be forgotten" online. The 31-year-old, identified as Tiziana, was found hanged at her aunt's home in Mugnano, close to Naples in the country's south on Tuesday, reports Agence France-Presse. From the report: Her death came a year after she sent a video of herself having sex to some friends, including her ex-boyfriend, to make him jealous. The video and her name soon found their way to the web and went viral, fuelling mockery of the woman online. The footage has been viewed by almost a million internet users. In a bid to escape the humiliation, Tiziana quit her job, moved to Tuscany and tried to change her name, but her nightmare went on. The words "You're filming? Bravo," spoken by the woman to her lover in the video, have become a derisive joke online, and the phrase has been printed on T-shirts, smartphone cases and other items. After a long court battle, Tiziana recently won a "right to be forgotten" ruling ordering the video to be removed from various sites and search engines, including Facebook.

Comments

Bravo indeed

[qbast]

"after she sent a video of herself having sex to some friends, including her ex-boyfriend, to make him jealous."

Stupidity kills.

Re: Bravo indeed

[TWX]

Despite the apparent acquiescence of neck-beards on Slashdot, having the ability to share personal information without sharing it with the entire world is something greatly desired by actual human beings.

And this capability has never, ever existed. Even huge corporations have tried to make it happen through a collection of technologies and laws called Digital Rights Management and despite tens of millions of dollars and system after system, DRM falls or is circumvented through the final 'analog hole'.

It's possible to have sympathy while still acknowledging that the risks that led to this outcome were entirely hers to bear in her obviously ill-thought actions that started this. The extreme nature of her particular extreme cultural influence is certainly abnormal, but it does show how ridiculous it is to expect the right to be forgotten to actually do a damn thing.

Re:Bravo indeed

[ranton]

We're seeing a new phenomenon relative to the entirely of human existence -- it's not natural for people to adjust to.

What are you talking about? For how much of human history do you think it was easy for average people to leave their society and start a new life? For how much of human history do you think average people had a large enough community to enjoy actual anonymity at any point in their life?

For most of human history you had small villages with a few hundred people, so anything you did followed you for life. I'm probably even being generous with that "few hundred" figure. Even in large cities people were segregated into smaller communities. What do you think would have happened to a woman who had sex in public for their ex-boyfriend and a few other people to watch in 1200 AD? It probably wouldn't have a happy ending for the woman.

Our society (especially in the US) has enjoyed perhaps a couple hundred years providing an unusual level of anonymity and chance for a new start in life. The final result of the information age will almost certainly put that to an end. Our societies need to spend more time dealing with the consequences of a lack of privacy and the permanency of information instead of kicking that can down the road with stupid laws and an idealistic view of human history.

Re:Bravo indeed

[coinreturn]

Fuck you.

Well sure, as long as you're not taping it.

A shame indeed

[fyngyrz]

Well, it's truly a shame that the world has become a place where you cannot escape your mistakes, large or small, if someone, anyone, is the least bit interested in seeing to it that you can't. No matter how hard you try, no matter how sincere you are, no matter what lengths you go to to adjust your behavior or act in ways to mitigate or reverse any damage you might have done, or have been perceived to have done.

It's part and parcel of the retribution over rehabilitation mindset, I think. Despicable, really.