It's a shame nobody saw this coming fourty years ago and devoted his life to the cause.
The infrastructure is run by private parties -- but since the advent of encryption it ought be possible to lay down some basic principles or precepts of the online denizen. "The Right to be Forgotten" is a strong step in the right direction, but anonymity sometimes makes people act rashly -- which reminds me of the need for Nettiquette. I believe the difficulty comes in guaranteeing backdoors for law-enforcement and crime-deterrence while still affording a strong level of privacy. It's unlikely that law enforcement will simply "get used to" the fact that encryption works and is difficult [and in the case of ECC likely intractable] to decipher. The alternative is state-run applications and tech-companies with cross-sectional presence of politically inclined people, or some weird tryst of tech companies, lobbying, legislation, and law-enforcement that effectively elevates tech companies to governance level without the primary oversight of elections to place them there. If there is a third option I'd love to hear it.
"The Right to be Forgotten" is a strong step in the right direction
You mean "The Right to Rewrite History"?
Uh, yeah, as if youtube or any digital screen-based media cannot be instantaneously rewritten or shuffled between visits. Hello "memoryhole" (if you're familiar with 1984)
Free software. Guaranteeing backdoors is a terrible strategy that should not even be considered.
Parent is concerned what will happen in the world where we actually exist.
Merely outlining the main antagonistic forces to actual free speech -- I'm more concerned with the weird oligarchic relationship between tech giants and law enforcement that cookie-cuts the electoral process out of the equation ... is that what you were getting at?
I believe it was Franklin who said "The man who sacrifices liberty for security will get neither" (paraphrasing) ... however, it's not a common sentiment among law-enforcement officials who prefer quiet over creativity. You are right that it ought not be considered by sane citizens in a free country, but what do you tell the appointed officials that try so desperately to make it so?
Nothing. If they try to pressure it's inclusion we remove it, if they sneak it in we'll find it. That's the beauty of free software.