The Right to Be Forgotten

In upcoming weeks, we'll be exploring the topics of intellectual property & copyright, privacy, and security online. All of these issues, at some level, deal with your rights as citizens and members of society. So this week, as a way of priming you to think critically about the variety of perspectives that may come into play when exploring issues of our rights in an online environment, let's explore the debate around the right to be forgotten.  

By the end of this unit, students will be able to

• define what the right to be forgotten entails,
• describe at least two sides of this debate, and
• articulate a reasoned stance about their own position on this topic 

Right to be Forgotten Debate

1. In order to get some background about a decision that was made in Europe about 'the right to be forgotten,' please watch this video. 

2. So what do you think? Should we have the right to be forgotten? What's your initial reaction? Stop and record your answer to this, marking the date and time. You will refer back to this later.

3. Now...let's get ready to dig into some public discourse on this topic. Watch Professor Eric Posner and Professor Jonathan Zittrain debate this topic as part of an Intelligence Squared debate (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. You'll be watching from the minute mark 20:38 through minute mark 34:51. You are more than welcome to watch this entire debate, all hour and a half of it, but for the purposes of this assignment, you are only required to watch that roughly 15-minute portion. 

https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/us-should-adopt-right-be-forgotten-online (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Let some of this information sink in a bit. Think about it. Talk about it with your friends and family. What do they think? Then move on to the discussion and assignment for this unit. (see below)

For more information:  

Glazer, S. (2015, December 4). Privacy and the internet. CQ Researcher, 25, 1009-1032. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2015120400 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

See the ICON Discussion board topic to record your responses: 

Please consider the issues you've heard about "right to be forgotten" and provide an example of when the right to privacy might be in conflict with the right of the know. 

Next, please search Google for "the Streisand effect (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site." and find an example of that phenomenon to share. You don't have to write too much, but provide enough context so your classmates will understand the scenario. Provide a link if you think that would be helpful in providing context. 

In a 3-part essay of approximately 2 pages, please address the following: 

• Briefly describe what you understand to be the major issues surrounding "the right to be forgotten."
• When you first answered the survey about your initial reaction to this debate, were you pretty solid about how you felt about this issue? Did your mind change after hearing the arguments in the debate? Which arguments did you find most compelling from the Intelligence Squared debate? Where do you currently stand on this issue?
• On the overview page of this unit, George Orwell was quoted as saying: 
  "He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past." 
  In at least 1-2 paragraphs of this essay, tell me who "he" is or who you think "he" should be in the context of online information. Get a bit philosophical. There is no wrong answer here, but I want to see that you've thought about this with some depth of understanding about the values that are sometimes in conflict when debating "the right to be forgotten."