The Argentine Republic is facing a possible ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice which will address, for the first time, the so-called “right to be forgotten” on the internet.
Natalia Denegri, a successful Argentine journalist and businesswoman based in Miami, United States, who was involved in the so-called “Coppola case” in late 1996, requested the deletion of Google's records, as well as any link to a series of news stories, several of them hosted on the Youtube platform and others on the newspapers Clarín and La Nación, considering that this information is old and without newsworthy interest.
The Civil Justice heeded Denegri's request and condemned Google to remove all links to those notes and any notes that refer to videos in which he had starred in discussions, insults or even singing or dancing scenes.
The basis of the judgment lies in a so-called “right to be forgotten”, which, according to the judgment of the Chamber, “implies accepting the veracity of the news disseminated by the search engine, but that the passage of time should bury them as they are harmful, without causing a benefit to their dissemination, due to the lack of public, historical, scientific, etc.”. This alleged right, it should be clarified, is not provided for in any Argentine legal or constitutional norm; those who accept it consider it a derivation of the right to honor or privacy.
The sentence does not order the removal of information but rather the de-indexing of search engines. Through this mechanism, information is not deleted at its source, but access by search engines is restricted or hindered.
The risks posed by the “right to be forgotten” arise from its own enunciation. The suppression of information constitutes the antithesis of the right to seek, receive and disseminate information.
The “Denegri” case is simple from the point of view of freedom of expression and constitutional norms. This is a public person, and journalistic information about events of public interest (information related to a criminal case that held him as a victim). In this context, the concealment of such information affects freedom of expression and the right of citizens to seek and receive information, as enshrined in article 13 of the Covenant of San José, Costa Rica.
Of course, the person may be legitimately distressed when they warn that, despite the achievements made in their professional and public life, search engines persist in preponderantly associating them with actions that occurred many years ago, with which they no longer identify. But in the face of this reality, the remedy cannot be the suppression or concealment of information. Consider whether instead of a famous television host, the proposal was made by an official or a state contractor linked to acts of corruption. Or a private contractor who aspires to work with State agencies and has committed such a crime. Hiding that information from public scrutiny would impoverish public debate.
On the other hand, the actor's participation for months and years on television was part of the current information of the time. The deletion or concealment of such information — which might likewise be required by the rest of the participants in these programs — would also constitute a loss to citizens.
The problem facing Denegri does not stem so much from the availability of information as from the way in which it is presented. Search engines reproduce information instantly and up-to-date without considering the historical evolution of the people to whom it is linked. In that “digital eternity”, where past and present converge in no known order, the decision of seekers to prioritize older results over more recent ones can disfigure a person's digital representation.
This particular problem, whose responsibility must be borne by platforms, cannot be solved by suppressing information available to the audience, but by making the operation of their algorithms transparent and adapted. The opacity of algorithms represents an ethical challenge to which there are different alternatives for their approach. There can be many possible solutions to these problems, and they constitute a legal problem.
Simply put: information that is out of date or that presents the past as a current reality pollutes public debate; however, the suppression or concealment of public and lawful information damages it even more.
*The author is a Professor of Constitutional Law at the Austral and Catholic Argentine universities in Buenos Aires, head of the Legal Guidance Service of the Association of Argentine Journalistic Entities (Adepa) and president of the Freedom of Expression Commission of the Bar Association of the City of Buenos Aires.
KEEP READING:
Últimas Noticias
Debanhi Escobar: they secured the motel where she was found lifeless in a cistern
Members of the Specialized Prosecutor's Office in Nuevo León secured the Nueva Castilla Motel as part of the investigations into the case
The oldest person in the world died at the age of 119
Kane Tanaka lived in Japan. She was born six months earlier than George Orwell, the same year that the Wright brothers first flew, and Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize
Macabre find in CDMX: they left a body bagged and tied in a taxi
The body was left in the back seats of the car. It was covered with black bags and tied with industrial tape
The eagles of America will face Manchester City in a duel of legends. Here are the details
The top Mexican football champion will play a match with Pep Guardiola's squad in the Lone Star Cup
Why is it good to bring dogs out to know the world when they are puppies
A so-called protection against the spread of diseases threatens the integral development of dogs
