> The so-called “right” to be forgotten is a strange right in free societies.
I believe the "right" (I agree that it should be quoted) to be forgotten is a temporary stopgap measure for those who haven't received a proper digital literacy education beforehand (that is, almost everyone). I expect the "right" will hang around for a long time, for the lack of better alternatives.
Children do awful things, including to each other. Bullying, for example. Nowadays, it can get recorded easily because everyone carries a smartphone. And it gets spread because of the Internet.
The right to be forgotten is a simple way to say: "I do not want this content to exist on the Internet". Does that stop the content from existing? No, of course not. Revenge pornography can still be found after that Pinkwhateveritwascalled website got shut down. But it got more difficult, and its a matter of supply and demand. If the website is only accessible via Tor, then those who got the content on their computer took more effort into obtaining the content. You could make the same argument for child pornography.
That being said, the real problem is the lack of prosecution for the content creators. And that is true for child pornography and revenge pornography and bullying videos. However, trend is that the latter 2 are on the rise on the public web. If the right to be forgotten can slow that trend down, I'd say that's a good thing.
You have a good point, and that's why the "right" will and has to say right now. Ultimately I think a disclosure of information of any kind against the subject's will will become a direct criminal charge in the future (in contrast to a set of specialized laws that we have now), and then the "right" will be obsoleted.
Or maybe a temporary stopgap measure until privacy is so diminished that society realizes everyone does "unacceptable" things and stops being outraged by what is normal.
I mean, probably >90% of people have been deeply drunk at some point of their life. So objetively and rationally speaking, a drunk photo is not a reasonable reason to reject someone from, e.g., a job. Maybe if such photos become widespread we will come to our senses in this?
"90 percent of people do it" is not an argument against rejecting someone for it. If I had two otherwise-identical candidates but one of them had photos of themselves online passed out in a pool of their own vomit and the other didn't, I'd pick the one who didn't. Same for other evidence of poor judgment, like a picture of them in a racist Halloween costume or comments mocking a disabled person or screenshots from an oh-so-funny thread on 8chan. If you don't want something to be part of your public image keep it private.
I'd say it's quite an argument. If 90% of people do it, it means that there is a 90% a prior probability that your other candidate has done it as well. So there is a 90% probability that you are basing your decision entirely in a non-factor. Surely there are more meaningful differences* between candidates to take into account that one that has 90% probability of not even being there at all.
To each their own, though.
*I know you said "otherwise identical", but that's not a very realistic situation and if it did happen, it would justify choosing by just any irrelevant difference, like one candidate having one day of work experience more than the other, so I don't think that says much about the importance of a criterion.
A 90 percent chance is still better than a 100 percent chance, especially when it comes to public evidence. 90 percent of people have probably said the N-word but I'm still not hiring somebody with public video of them doing it.
I believe the "right" (I agree that it should be quoted) to be forgotten is a temporary stopgap measure for those who haven't received a proper digital literacy education beforehand (that is, almost everyone). I expect the "right" will hang around for a long time, for the lack of better alternatives.