The “right to be forgotten” rules are, with all due respect to the EU regulators, pretty shortsighted.

I think the initial “right to be forgotten” lawsuit that Google faced from that Spanish guy-- where he claimed bankruptcy years prior. People( potential lenders?) kept finding that information online through google searches. He sued to have Google remove those sites from the index. He won and the Spanish Judge told Google they had to remove those results from searches.

But it didn’t change that the information was still on each site. Those sites, the ones that actually held the information didn’t get sued, just Google.

It also opened the door for oppressive governments covering up human rights abuses or hide other information they dont want widely available.

Google appealed and won: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49808208

I also want to point out that this Spanish guy’s situation is very different from “posting publicly on social media”. He was getting written about by others and the courts eventually said “no, this can stand. This information should remain available”. So I imagine, public statements made by an individual certainly wouldn’t qualify to be forgotten.

At the end of the day, to me, this is a technical decision not a privacy one.

The only drama I’ve seen on it is a few idealists on other instances complaining about it and these posts.

I actually like beehaw more as an instance because of what they’ve done.

Nilay Patel had a great article when Elon bought Twitter. One of the key take aways I tend to agree with is:“The essential truth of every social network is that the product is content moderation, and everyone hates the people who decide how content moderation works.”

I love being part of a community and being able to discuss and debate. But ultimately I want to do it in a place where I don’t feel creeped out, skeevy, or where I am getting harassed or threatened.

I value the moderation. I value the curation. I want the mods to defederate if they see an influx of trolls, shit posts, or sketchy content from a particular instance.

And you know what, I’ll be annoyed when they block something or someone I don’t think they should have.

The reality is: the fediverse is designed for this sort of thing. Theyve been very transparent and they will re federate when the tooling is better. I have no reason to doubt that.

I see this as growing pains and nothing more.