With
Google as
Censor, “Right
To Be
Forgotten”
Loses in IQ2US
Debate
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, March
11 -- It must
be something
in the air, or
in America.
The day after
a motion that
the US should
adopt Europe's
“Right To Be
Forgotten on
the Internet”
lost badly in
an
Intelligence
Squared
debate, the
European
Union's
mission to the
UN is set to
present what
appears to be
a defense of
the policy by
one of the
debaters, Paul
Nemitz,
Director,
Fundamental
rights and
Union
citizenship,
European
Commission
Directorate-General
for Justice
and Consumers.
The
Intelligence
Squared debate
highlighted
the central
role of Google
in deciding in
the first
instance what
to remove from
Search. The
company was
presented as
being against
censorship,
and copyright
was portrayed
as something
different, a
positive or
productive use
of censorship.
But that
ignores what
Inner City
Press has
found to be a
growing
problem: the
misuse of the
US Digital
Millennium
Copyright Act,
set to be
globalized if
the Trans
Pacific
Partnership is
adopted, to
block material
that is not
really subject
to copyright
from Google's
Search.
Here's an
example: in
2012 the UN
bureau chief
of Reuters
Louis
Charbonneau
filed a “for
the record”
complaint
against Inner
City Press
with the UN's
Media
Accreditation
unit. The
underlying
incident
involved
attempts by
the Reuters
bureau chief,
the then and
current
president of
the UN
Correspondents
Association Giampaolo
Pioli and
a few others
to expel Inner
City Press.
(This
same duo would
later urge
Inner City
Press to
withdraw a
request under
the US Freedom
of Information
Act to the
State
Department's
Broadcasting
Board of
Governors
about Voice
of America's
request to the
UN to "review"
Inner City
Press'
accreditation,
here.)
Once the “for
the record”
complaint to
the UN was
leaked to
Inner City
Press, it
reported about
it and put it
online. Some
time later a
Google search
resulted in a
DMCA notice:
an item has
been removed
from Search,
to wit, the
Reuters
complaint.
Reuters bureau
chief Lou
Charbonneau
had filed
with Google,
under oath but
apparently
without any
review by
Google, a
claim that
this “for the
record”
complaint to
the UN was
subject to
copyright. It
is not, but
Google granted
the requested,
engaging in
censorship.
Thankfully,
the Electronic
Frontier
Foundation's
ChillingEffects.org
project puts
such take-down
notices
online.
The
irony, of
course, is
that by Reuters'
and
Charbonneau's
logic, many of
them claimed
"exclusives" involving
leaked or spoon-fed
documents
could be
removed from
Google's
Search. But is
Google
even-handed,
even in
censorship?
Similarly, the
Ergogan
government in
Turkey has
claimed that
leaked audio
is subject to
copyright, and
has gotten at
least some of
it removed
from the
Internet.
If this is he
way Google
operations in
the US, before
or absent any
“Right to Be
Forgotten,”
how would it
act if such a
law were
enacted?
In the
Intelligence
Squared
debate,
arguing
effectively
against the
motion were
Andrew
McLaughlin,
CEO, Digg and
Instapaper --
and former
Director of
Global Public
Policy of
Google -- and
Jonathan
Zittrain,
Co-Founder of
the Berkman
Center for
Internet &
Society.
As moderated
by John
Donvan, they
defeated Eric
Posner,
Professor of
Law,
University of
Chicago and,
yes, Paul
Nemitz, Dir.
of Fundamental
Rights &
Citizenship,
EU Commission.
Is there a
need to hear
him again at
the EU's
offices on
Third Avenue,
with the siren
song of
censorship?
, 
