The internet doesn't forget. Sometimes, perhaps it should.
The internet doesn't forget. Sometimes, perhaps it should.
Today, the lives of many people have become so digitised that Google may know more about you than your closest friends. We’re becoming increasingly aware that it’s worth being careful what you post publicly on social media — at least if you want to keep any of your life private from your boss, or anyone else who might want to check up on you.
Or, if you were mentioned in a newspaper article or someone else’s blog for any reason, that article is likely to come up in a search of your name for years afterwards — even when you feel that it’s no longer relevant to who you are, or if it’s something you’d rather people didn’t know about.
Even more seriously, court records are now digitised. And that means they may be publicly available for years. You may have been involved in a court case and proved innocent — yet the stigma of once having been a suspect may be enough to damage your reputation.
How can we reclaim our right to put the past behind us? What’s happened to the idea of privacy?
The right to be forgotten
The Delhi High Court ruled in favour of individual privacy in key cases recently
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The idea of a legal “right to be forgotten” has been a hot topic of debate for some time. In the European Union, for example, the General Data Protection Regulation gives individuals the right to ask organisations to delete their personal data. In some cases the organisations may not have to comply, if there is a strong reason in the public interest for keeping it. But in general they are obliged to “forget” the person in question within a month of the request.
Most countries in the West now have clear legislation surrounding data protection and the right to be forgotten, but India is still lagging behind and lacks any comprehensive legal framework. The individual right to privacy is dealt with under the Personal Data Protection Bill of 2019, which has yet to be officially passed by parliament.
Last summer saw a significant step forward, when the Delhi High Court ruled that an individual had the right to be forgotten and “to be left alone”. The context was the case of an actress who had requested an official restriction on explicit videos she featured in which were streaming on various online platforms including YouTube. She had never consented to them being shared publicly, and, in addition to causing her serious emotional pain, she was experiencing harassment, threats, and abuse as a result. The judge ruled in her favour.
In another case, Ashutosh Kaushik — winner of a reality show in 2008, and a minor celebrity at the time — petitioned the court for posts and videos related to his personal life at the time to be removed. He had been convicted of drunken driving, and there was some video evidence of him behaving badly —but nothing worse than many other young men. Now, more than ten years later, he has matured and regrets his earlier behaviour. The fact that these videos of his younger self are freely available online cause him real psychological pain. Again, the judge ruled in his favour.
The impact of online shaming
Shame is one of the most powerful human emotions
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Everyone has done things in the past that they want to put behind them. Before the advent of the internet, it was relatively easy; people have short memories. Any story that appeared in the “scandal” pages of a tabloid newspaper would be forgotten within a month. If that story involved you, the shame would be terrible at the time — but you could rest easy that within a year or two no one would remember.
These days, it’s a very different story. If something about you appears online, it stays there. In some cases — particularly when it comes to sexual images of women posted without consent — these can be deeply hurtful.
Shame is a powerful emotion that sometimes far outweighs whatever caused it. And the internet amplifies its impact a thousandfold.
Sometimes it has tragic consequences, particularly in the context of social media. Take the case of Ariel Runis, a 47-year-old government clerk from Israel. He got into a dispute with a woman of colour who was applying for a passport, who later posted on Facebook accusing him of being racist. As often happens on such platforms, hundreds of others commented and shared, making him an internet hate-figure within hours. Ariel Runis could not bear it; he shot himself.
Public shaming is a hugely problematic aspect of our online age. Not only can thousands of strangers hurl hate speech at you on social media, but you know that whatever happened will forever be associated with your name, whenever anyone does a simple Google search.
The fine balance of privacy and transparancy
Legislation is important because individuals have a right to privacy, and also because there are certain cases this does not apply. The public has the right to know about crime, for example: the right to be forgotten should not protect criminals, or used by people in power to delete any online criticism of their actions.
It’s different when it comes to individuals; it’s understandable if you don’t want pictures from one embarrassing evening ten years ago to haunt you forever, and perhaps damage your job prospects and reputation. Or, worse, if someone has posted explicit images of you without your consent — a situation that usually applies to women, and a common method of shaming women journalists or other women brave enough to speak out. In many cases the images are fabricated, but it’s enough that they appear to be real.
But we have the right to know about our leaders. Transparency is essential to a democracy, as is the freedom of the press. If a journalist writes an unflattering article about a politician, for example, that politician cannot demand that it be taken down.
That’s why any legislation on the right to be forgotten must be extremely clear and detailed — protecting individuals from online shaming while also protecting the right to free speech and access to information.
