Asklemmy

I don't think you need to be dysphoric to want to be forgotten. I don't think it's any less reasonable than wanting to have a legacy.

The real question is, what does the "right to be forgotten" even mean? You can't have a right that involved other peoples' thoughts. In most cases I think it's the right to be able to own and remove records you created on third party systems.

The right to be forgotten, as I usually read it, is the right to have Google or Meta or whatever to remove your account and everything associated with it. I wish that were law.

"Human rights" are a nice idea, but unfortunately, they're a joke in practice. History clearly shows how quickly even the most basic rights vanish. If you aren't liberated, if you don't have the power to defend them (whether collective or individual power), rights are only privileges. So in that sense, I can't consider it a human right.

But do I think someone should be free to pursue that goal? I'm not sure. Remembering history is really important in our development and learning. For a more extreme example, if someone, say, worked as a hitman for organized crime, killing many people, and later regretted their decision and requested people forget about them, I don't think someone who has had such a profound impact on a society should be able to simply demand that anyone, let alone the whole of their society, ignore their past actions.

I believe people can appeal for forgiveness, or even ask people to forget them, but I don't believe in a universal right to be forgotten, such as legally punishing people who discuss someone who wanted to be forgotten (I really don't know how else such a right could be enforced).

With all that said, the GDPR "right to be forgotten" is a distinct and wonderful thing and I hope more countries enforce it. But again, know it's only a privilege. A company can literally just make an illegal copy and pass it around like candy, if they believe they can avoid prosecution.

I mean, doesn't that imply the existence of natural rights outside of our social agreement they exist? I think there's lots in history that runs counter to that assumption.

So, reinterpreting a bit, should we have a right to be forgotten? On the one hand, that sounds nice. I've fucked up a lot in my life, and as long as someone remembers it feels like it's permanent. On the other, there's all kinds of academic arguments to preserve everything. Who knows what brilliant anthropological research you could do in 3000AD with the time someone overheard teenage me smack-talking their baby? (Only semi-/s)

I guess my main instinct is that once a right is established, it should be hard to get rid of. For that reason, I'm going to say no, not without an overwhelming argument for it. I still like legislation that allows you to withdraw your information from services, but that's more because I don't trust the services (practically and in abstract) than for a deep philosophical reason.

imo it conflicts too much with freedom of information. In general, if I know something then I shouldn't be barred from continuing to know it and expressing it, even if that knowledge involves someone who would rather I couldn't. There can be exceptions in extreme situations, but things like a "right to be forgotten" and "copyright" very broadly violate freedom of information.

Sure

If we didn't have the right to be forgotten, does that mean records of us would always exist? Or that we would have no privacy?

Idk but I’d hope to be remembered by my future ancestors and writings.