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Dutch Surgeon Wins Landmark 'Right To Be Forgotten' Case (theguardian.com)
AmiMoJo shares a report from The Guardian: A Dutch surgeon formally disciplined for her medical negligence has won a legal action to remove Google search results about her case in a landmark "right to be forgotten" ruling. The doctor's registration on the register of healthcare professionals was initially suspended by a disciplinary panel because of her postoperative care of a patient. After an appeal, this was changed to a conditional suspension under which she was allowed to continue to practice. But the first results after entering the doctor's name in Google continued to be links to a website containing an unofficial blacklist, which it was claimed amounted to "digital pillory." It was heard that potential patients had found the blacklist on Google and discussed the case on a web forum. The surgeon's lawyer, Willem van Lynden, said the ruling was groundbreaking in ensuring doctors would no longer be judged by Google on their fitness to practice. "Now they will have to bring down thousands of pages: that is what will happen, in my view. There is a medical disciplinary panel but Google have been the judge until now. They have decided whether to take a page down -- and why do they have that position?" Van Lynden said.
So Yelp is allowed to keep going but medical professionals who impact lives instead of serving food are allowed to "be forgotten?"
Now they will have to bring down thousands of pages: that is what will happen, in my view. There is a medical disciplinary panel but Google have been the judge until now. They have decided whether to take a page down -- and why do they have that position?" Van Lynden said.
It sounds like Van Lynden doesn't know how the internet works. Google can't "take down" anything. All it can do is remove references from its search results. I would love to hear an explanation for the technical aspects of how this would be done. Are Google's algorithms really that good that they can "de-list" certain websites but only for very specific search terms? What happens when/if this doctor gets put on the naughty list again? Are they required to de-list the next blog that people decide to comment on? This is very interesting from both a "free speech" (and yes, I realize this isn't a US story) and from a technical perspective.
This is a really good example of why the "right to be forgotten" idea is a really bad idea. Aside from issues of free speech, in any reasonable context, patients should have a right to know what problems or potential issues a doctor they have has had. One doesn't even need an American style strong free speech norm to see that this should be unacceptable.
I'm not sure why anyone thinks they have a right to be forgotten, especially when other people have a right to know.
This is an exercise of the right to correct information, not of "the right to be forgotten". The claims are against websites that publish the incorrect information about the disciplinary action that is no longer valid. It is the same as a sentence which has been revoked is removed from your criminal record.
That is, the name of this surgeon?
I consider 'right to be forgotten' in the same line as 'right to not be offended'. I.E., a 'right' that doesn't exist.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Negative rights of noninterference in how you choose to live your own life are fundamentally incompatible with positive rights of entitlement and accommodation where you make others give you certain things, treat you a certain way, and operate in a certain fashion. Following the later is no more being 'prorights' or 'for civil rights' than the former. Its simply choosing one set of rights over another set of rights. Inherently the more you go one way the less you go the other way. The best you can hope for is a balance of sorts between the two. Unfortunately it looks like the West is going full bore in one direction.
I tried searching for this (on Google, first, before I had a duh moment, then on Duck Duck Go). All of the news stories seem to be based on a single Dutch news story with no additional information. Searching for Dutch court dockets is apparently hard when you don't speak Dutch.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I found the case documents at the Dutch court website, but believe it or not they are all anonymized!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
OK, got it. All this Dutch is killing me! According to this Dutch website, the doctor's name is Rita Kappel and the black list in question is here.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
This article has more detail: https://www.villamedia.nl/arti...
Her 'lawyer' (speciality in bad media disappearance consulting) had the case sealed and it remained unpublished until the decision was final. Even the "personal information authority" for the country does not agree with the surgeon or the judge since the surgeon still isn't fully cleared from her prior malpractice.
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This "bring down thousands of pages" line is a shot at bullshiting ignorant Americans (and maybe Brits too) - cause Netherlands is a civil law country.
As such, one ruling of a court is nothing but one ruling by that court.
It changes no laws, nor does it affect other cases anywhere in the land. Or the world.
A precedent will get you no more than a cup of coffee. Provided you have the money to pay for it.
See... Most of the world DOES NOT use a legal system created for illiterate lords who've inherited their lands from their illiterate dead parents, along with the job to dispense justice to local peasants.
Nor the legal system which came out of that one, only now judges were illiterate local strongmen with guns, somewhere out on the "frontier".
A system where a "hanging judge" makes the law, the rest of the state be damned.
Most of the world thinks that's kinda stupid.
https://www.economist.com/the-...
Although common-law systems make extensive use of statutes, judicial cases are regarded as the most important source of law, which gives judges an active role in developing rules.
For example, the elements needed to prove the crime of murder are contained in case law rather than defined by statute.
To ensure consistency, courts abide by precedents set by higher courts examining the same issue.
In civil-law systems, by contrast, codes and statutes are designed to cover all eventualities and judges have a more limited role of applying the law to the case in hand.
Past judgments are no more than loose guides.
When it comes to court cases, judges in civil-law systems tend towards being investigators, while their peers in common-law systems act as arbiters between parties that present their arguments.
Oh an BTW...
If the "law firm" is called MediaMaze and if it specializes in "Online reputation management", "Online PR" and "right to be forgotten"...
It's a PR firm.
And they are selling their spiel, hoping that either someone at Google will fall for it - or for free publicity for themselves, and possibly some illiterate potential clients from the US and UK.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The courts anonymized and sealed the records.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Now we hope this information gets more widely spread.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
"When the own the information, they can bend it all they want" - John Mayer, "Waiting on the world to change"
Someone took ownership of this information certainly.
IMO, patients ought to know about professional achievements or sanctions. Just like I wanna know a potential hire's criminal record. Because it directly impacts me.
So Dr. Rita Kappel was initially disciplined and her right to practice was suspended because of her postoperative care of a patient - but then her disciplinary action was altered to allow her to continue to practice. However the overall disciplinary action remains intact and on her record.
Do I have those facts regarding Dr. Rita Kappel correct?
#DeleteChrome
Since anything that somebody doesn't like can be removed from visibility, if for some reason it is found to be politically incorrect or offensive to somebody.
If history can be revised by a court whose decision is based entirely on moral values at the time and not upon what *actually* occured, there is absolutely no point to teaching it to anyone.
And who gets to decide what is "history worthy" and what is not?
Let future generations decide what is important for them to remember and what is not... we have an obligation to that generation, however, to record what has *ACTUALLY* happened, and to preserve that information for them, not just what happens to feel good or fair at the time.
"Right to be forgotten" is just revisionist history with a PC agenda.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If performing a google search on the doctor yields the court's ruling, does that violate the ruling? Or is this some kind a secret ruling nobody can talk about but somehow they are supposed to know it so they can obey it?
Or is there going to be a new website - here is a list of people who won "right to be forgotten" cases, and here are all their case details you're not supposed to link to?
The blacklist lists a 2-year suspension, with an update wayyyyy down the page indicating that the suspension was reduced, as noted in the OP. And you really have to read into the text to find this out.
This comment stood out in the legal proceedings:
"The Central Disciplinary Court has declared a number of complaints components to be (partially) unfounded and has imposed on the plastic surgeon the lower measure of conditional suspension for a period of 4 months with a probationary period of 2 years."
So it seems that some of the original 9 complaints are unfounded, and this is a case of he said/she said, with a dispute of what actually happened.
If we are really serious about combating fake news, then why shouldn't Google have to delist the biased and misleading blacklist, in favor of other more accurate reviews?
I note that Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) complained that doing an image search of him came up with a photoshopped image of his head on a Nazi uniform in the top row. (source) Scott complained to Google and got no response, and only after asking his followers complain did the image get *somewhat* downranked. It's still there in the first page of image results.
He points out that the image came from a twitter account with 15 followers:
“Now, these are real pictures that people have ‘memed up’ on Twitter and somewhere else, but here’s the thing, if you click through to those pictures they are the least, smallest, most minor mention of me compared to everything I’ve been doing for years. So, I’m asking myself, and I’m gonna ask you as well, do you think given that – so one of these clicks through, one of the pictures of me wearing a photoshopped Nazi uniform, if you click through it goes to a fake Twitter account that’s pretending to be me that has only 15 followers.”
Adams asked: “Do you think that a fake Twitter account that has only 15 followers would have enough followers that Google’s algorithm would pick that? Of all the pictures there are of me, there are a lot of pictures of me in the public domain, in articles. I was probably in 25 major articles last year alone, and this one little 15 user fake Twitter account is the fourth image that comes up?”
It seems perfectly reasonable that people should start pushing back against Google's search manipulation, and the "right to be forgotten" seems to be a good first step.
The story being, basically a weekend plastic surgeon that uses a rented theatre and cheap gig economy nurses in surgery, did a quick dirty, boobie deflation job. After sending the gig economy cheap surgery team home, who are too expensive and leaving the victim in the care of general nurse after the weekend surgeon wandered off counting the profits. Well the victim was not quite sealed up and was leaking, a lot, rather than put together a proper surgical team. The doctor sort of botched one up with the nurses available to get the victim done with as fast as possible, costing the surgeon money now and well, quite the awkward mess, all those amateurs in a room and after lots of bleeding and mess an hour and a half latter the patient sealed up.
Going in for surgery, go with a surgeon who works in a real hospital and where you will have doctors and nurses of all sorts on tap. Go to a weekend hacker that rents an surgery by the hour and brings on gig economy party time surgical 'er' specialists, and is looking to make as much profit as possible, as in spend as little as possible and push the gig economy workers out the surgery door as fast as possible.
When going in for surgery, ask which hospital and full time staff, don't go to the rental surgery and the gig economy workers, it's cheaper for a reason. That doctors special gig is https://www.drkappel.nl/ and https://www.drkappel.nl/, when it comes to inflato boobies she works the flip side, deflation. Runs a whole 'Institute' of medical practices web site (I'll bet it wants goggle search to remember that), when in reality a surgeon on the cheap, rented surgery and gig economy surgical staff the cheapest available, to maximise profits and good luck for the victims.
Most people going to a surgery would expect the doctor and the surgical team to know each other well and be practised working together so as not to make mistakes and during and post surgery, a lot of resources accessible for problems, not to be left in the lurch, bleeding out.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
If there is a law explicitly stating that there is "a right to be forgotten", then that right exists.
Just in the same way as you have the right to own land.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Google provides a very clear and useful hint when it has removed results due to this "right to be forgotten" law. This is when you fire up the VPN to, say, the US and repeat the search, then do a diff between the results to find the interesting ones.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I consider 'right to be forgotten' in the same line as 'right to not be offended'. I.E., a 'right' that doesn't exist.
That's because you subscribe to the American style of court by public opinion. In Europe there's more of a philosophy that if someone has done the crime and done the time and been deemed fit to return to society then they should be considered as equal.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Look , TL;DR : you are basically a proponent of marking any people having been caught adulterous with a red brand on their forehead. This is exactly what you want. Before google and other search engine we all enjoyed a right to be forgotten, in other word a right to be able to correct errors, and become better. If you brand people forever , you effectively destroy their life. Maybe you are an american ? That would explain it, US society seem good on punitive action but not so much on rehabilitation, or prevention.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
Right to be forgotten is about asking fucking companies to stop fucking remembering you.
E.g. facebook to leave you alone, once you've decided you don't needed.
A goddamn online shop to stop remembering you, just because you once ordered shit from them and forgot to uncheck "annoy me with all kinds of spam".
In no way is the "right to be forgotten" about manipulating search results. This case has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
Why does no-one look at punishing the originator of the fake news graffiti, rather than the wall on which it's written?
OK, got it. All this Dutch is killing me! According to this Dutch website, the doctor's name is Rita Kappel and the black list in question is here.
You missed something very important about this Dutch website,
According to this article the judge himself is on a blacklist of this site due to previous ruling in favor of plastic surgeons, there is a conflict of interest here.
The (online) blacklist itself is tested by law and allowed.
They have decided whether to take a page down -- and why do they have that position?" Van Lynden said.
Because (political biases excepted) they are literally a search engine that just links to what people publish and talk about.
And strangely enough, people publish and talk about medical professionals being disciplined.
If we are really serious about combating fake news, then why shouldn't Google have to delist the biased and misleading blacklist, in favor of other more accurate reviews?
A reasonable question. So how do we do this in something approximating real time with good accuracy? It's easy to say we should do it but HOW is a lot more complicated with a lot of sticky censorship and free speech and freedom of the press and civil rights issues. Even for private companies. How does one decide what constitutes good versus bad information without having editorial control like a newspaper? And how do you do this in an automated way? There is too much out there for Google (or any company) to have people reviewing all content.
I note that Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) complained that doing an image search of him came up with a photoshopped image of his head on a Nazi uniform in the top row.
Adams publicly defended Trump's defense of white supremacists. That's how you get labeled a nazi and a white surpremicist. If he didn't like this then he shouldn't have publicly defended Trump's indefensible comments about them being "fine people". He's been a public figure long enough that he should know how this would play out.
It seems perfectly reasonable that people should start pushing back against Google's search manipulation, and the "right to be forgotten" seems to be a good first step.
I think the right to be forgotten stuff is a very blunt instrument that doesn't really get at the core problems.
“Rita Kappel from Zwolle”: https://translate.google.com/t...
In Soviet EU, history book have looseleaf pages! Is great accomplishment of Brussels Politburo!
This "coincidence" is more indicative of your bias than it is of anything else. If you scroll through the blacklist of doctors you will see that she in fact stands out complexion-wise.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You kind of make it sound like the patients are idiots for not going to a reputable hospital, but the situation is a bit more nuanced than that. Kappel's patients are often referred to her by a general practitioner, because the general practitioner feels an operation is necessary which the regular hospitals don't want to perform, particularly the removal of certain silicone breast implants.
There's a bit of a controversy about some (by no means all) silicone breast implants. The mainstream medical opinion, which the hospitals seem to be following is that they're all safe and cannot cause health problems, excepting possible when they get damaged by trauma or extreme age (of the implant). However, there are quite a few general practitioners and other people who went to university and got a medical degree just like the other doctors, who opine that certain low-quality implants can cause various health problems.
I know next to nothing about medicine. I don't know who's right. So I can well imagine that when you're a regular woman and you're getting referred to Kappel by your general practitioner, you're going there under the impression that the operation will benefit your health and will be conducted professionally.
This win is a pyrrhic victory because it doesn't cover the content of the websites themselves, it simply removes them from one search engine. People could always choose to visit the most commonly used review sites like Angie's List or Yelp. In the US, consumers are protected by law against corporate backlash when using these sites to leave negative reviews. The old adage, "You cannot please everyone" applies. It sucks when some up tight consumer is upset because he or she wasn't given a happy ending and write a bad review.
The fact that you agree that Scott Adams should be labeled a nazi, is symptomatic of this very problem.
At no point did I say he should be labeled a nazi. I said that he shouldn't be surprised that he was labeled one. If you defend Nazis anywhere beyond defending their constitutional right to free speech you should darn well expect to be considered to be one. Might not be fair but it's reality. Adams tried to defend WHAT they said when he should have stopped at defending their right to say it.
You completely diminish the true nature of how bad they were by throwing this label around over your political opposites.
If you fail to condemn Nazis and white supremacists then you de-facto are condoning them. There is no middle ground here and you are picking a side either way. Siding with Nazis isn't far removed from being one. Most conservatives/republicans clearly are NOT white supremacists but there are far too many who are. They are not "fine people" and trying to spin or nuance such statements is to support them. To defend the protesters beyond their constitutional rights is to side with them. Even the ACLU would (and has) defended their free speech rights but defending what they say is much different than defending their right to say it. Adams (and Trump) failed to recognize this difference.
https://www.ratemds.com/ is far better than Yelp. Looks like they don't operate in Europe.
They should.
The proper remedy would've been for Scott Adams to ask Twitter to revoke the account, or at least get them to change the picture. You have a right to control how your own likeness is used. That twitter account was clearly violating it by using a photoshopped picture of him.
Google had nothing to do with it, and was in fact instrumental in helping him locate this violation of his personality rights. Unfortunately he then tried to shoot the messenger instead of tackling the root of the problem.
That's really the fundamental problem with the way this right to be forgotten is being implemented. Search engines like Google are merely the messenger. Forcing them to remove search results doesn't remove the bad information from the web. Unless you go after the source of the bad info and force them to fix it (or get the host to remove the site/account), you're just just trying to make the problem go away by sticking everyone's head in the sand.. Next up, we will solve world hunger by banning the press from reporting on it.
I'm horrified that the right to be forgotten is a thing anywhere.
The right to free speech is the most fundamental right to Americans.
-Dave
Modded down "no I'm all knowing" or just "What this guy is saying is really clashes with my opinion?"
Neither of those are valid moderation criteria.
So, I understand the position that when someone screws up, and has paid their penalty, they should be allowed a chance to move on with their life. I get that. And I know some people will and yet, the odds are mostly against them doing so. Let me give you an example...
The oncologist my dad saw was tried and convicted a few years ago for fraudulently diagnosing people with various cancers. He's not likely to serve again, but say that he were able. Should I, as a consumer have to be a test case for someone just out of prison, and not have the right to know the history of that scumbag? Yeah, I have some strong personal feelings because he's part of the reason I lost my dad.
Most snakes will remain snakes.
Just another day in Paradise