Adepa was presented as amicus curiae in the case for “Right to be forgotten” before the Supreme Court

The Association of Argentine Journalistic Entities (ADEPA) presented itself as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation in the judicial case known as “Right to Oblivion”, initiated by actress Natalia Denegri against the giant Google search engine.

This is a category discussed mainly in Europe and pending precedents in the country, which in this case seeks to remove from the search results all notes and videos related to the complainant, whose name appears as the “girl from the Coppola case”.

The Executive Council of ADEPA, at its February meeting, decided to make this presentation, in front of the public hearing for that case determined by the Supreme Court, which will be held this Thursday, March 17.

The case came to that instance after Google appealed the first and second instance judgments that had ruled in favor of Denegri. Now the highest court will not only have to make a determination on the matter, but it will have to outline a standard on whether people can ask search engines to stop exposing news from the past that they consider harmful.

In the article, the journalistic association focuses on the defense of the principles of freedom of expression and of the press in the Argentine and Inter-American legal system, understanding that “the suppression and concealment of information that the 'right to be forgotten' entails are ways of limiting public debate.”

“In fact, de-indexing constitutes a serious limitation on the possibility of disseminating and accessing de-indexed information, which will be hidden from the general public,” ADEPA said.

For this entity, according to a statement released, “the deletion of public information is essentially inadmissible, while de-indexing in search engines constitutes an unreasonably restrictive solution, since it violates freedom of expression”.

“This way of conceiving the 'right to be forgotten' is not too different from the suppression of information and has negative effects in a double sense: on the one hand, it prevents readers from accessing old media information through search engines — thus limiting the audience of these notes — and, on the other, it deprives readers of the journalists of a powerful investigative tool”, stressed the association.

In this regard, it was warned that, “in practice, the harmful effects of de-indexing on the information ecosystem are not much different from the suppression of information”.

In its writing, ADEPA acknowledges that public persons have an area of privacy protected by law, but considers that, “however, the problem posed by the 'right to be forgotten' is different”.

“This is to prevent the dissemination of completely public information, given to publicity voluntarily in journalistic programs, in respect of which the existence of any illegality in its origin is not maintained,” he said.

Another issue addressed by the entity was the responsibility of search engines and the problem of incentives for the deletion of information, since, if the judgment of the House in the Denegri v. Google case is confirmed, “it will be simpler, faster and cheaper for search engines to access requests for deletion or de-indexing of information that analyze and possibly discuss the origin of the request”.

“Thus, a large amount of news will be suppressed or hidden in which there is a more or less clear public interest in keeping the information available,” he warned.

The amicus curiae also referred to the role of algorithms in the distribution of information content, noting that “the publication of information on the internet and its subsequent reproduction by search engines distort the idea of time and, in this way, can distort people's identity”.

“Algorithms reproduce information in an instant and current way without considering — or doing so poorly — the historical evolution of people who are linked to certain information,” he explained.

The entity added that “search engines may hide or give little relevance to newer facts, perhaps because they have fewer visits or for other reasons that are unknown, due to the opacity with which large search engines work.”

For ADEPA, the solution to the defects arising from the “poor functioning of algorithms must be sought in their correction, which imposes greater transparency in the criteria for the selection and ordering of results, rather than the elimination or de-indexing of public information”.

“Algorithms are the result of human intelligence, of those who develop and program them; they have the duty to correct their functioning,” concluded the association's statement.

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