When Should Privacy Trump Free Speech?
In a May 2014 decision, Europe’s highest ruled that search engines doing business in the EU must process takedown requests for search results that individuals believe violate their privacy rights -- creating a formal, EU-wide "right to be forgotten." Since then, they have been flooded with tens of thousands of such requests. More often than not, these are to factually accurate public information. Many critics, such as TechDirt's Mike Masnick, worry that this has already opened the door for disgraced politicians, sex offenders, and malpractice-burdened doctors to wipe their slate clean (http://j.mp/1nS4Vv0). And an editorial from the Wall Street Journal warned this would create “an Internet with borders,” where access to information differs depending on where you live.
Join us for a discussion of the EU decision's consequences, its spread to other countries, and how it is already affecting American tech companies and Internet entrepreneurs. And if it could ever take root in America.
Presenters
Emma Llansó
Dir, Project on Free Expression
Center for Democracy and Technology
Emma Llansó is the Director of CDT’s Project on Free Expression, which works to promote policies that support users’ free expression rights in the United States and around the world.
Since 2011...
Show the restJillian York
Dir for Intl Freedom of Expression
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Jillian C. York is a writer and activist focused on the intersection of
technology and policy. She serves of the Director for International
Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foun...
Show the restMike Godwin
Gen Counsel & Dir of Innovation Policy
Internews
Michael Godwin is an American attorney and author. He was the first staff counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the creator of the Internet adage Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies. F...
Show the restZach Graves
Dig Dir
R Street Institute
Zach Graves is digital director and policy analyst focusing on technology issues at the libertarian-leaning R Street Institute. He heads up R Street's digital advocacy and activism efforts, and lea...
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