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Comment by curt15 | Hacker News Reader

But if there were more people like Kim Peek who could recall anything they read, like a walking, talking, search engine, should they be muzzled online?

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If what they say breaks a law yes. For example in the UK the rehabilitation of offenders act means that once a crime is spent it is an offence to discuss publish information about the crime. This is a classic instance where right to be forgotten is used.

>For example in the UK the rehabilitation of offenders act means that once a crime is spent it is an offence to discuss publish information about the crime.

But in that case, wouldn't a news website that provides its archives of old crime stories for the public to read be guilty of that offence? If certain information is illegal to be disseminated, why isn't its actual source held liable or otherwise subject to takedown?

Some* crimes anyway.

Any sentence under threshold will become spent. Some crimes will still show on DBS checks.

If it's already illegal, then I don't see how a right to be forgotten changes anything in that case.

It means the search engines can't stick their fingers in their ears and ignore real people's legitimate needs to put their past mistakes behind them.

What about people's legitimate need to share the wrongs that people have done to them? Or people's legitimate need to know someone's history?

Imagine you meet someone on a dating site, and they assault you on your date. They serve their time, and now have a 'right to be forgotten'.

Do future potential dates not get to know that their date that night has been convicted of assault against someone else, also on a first date? Am I not allowed to warn those people?

Once the crime is spent no.

That makes no sense. If it was already illegal to publish that information then they already weren't allowed to do that. Maybe this law has harsher penalties but, generally speaking, making something double-illegal isn't meaningful.

This is so bizarre to me. So lets say I am assaulted, and that person serves time and then is freed. After a certain period of time, I am no longer allowed to write about my experience online? I am not allowed to warn people, "hey, this guy assaulted me 10 years ago!".

Now, suppose he was never convicted. Am I allowed to write about my experience now?

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