I'm sure this varies from region to region, but I don't think random people like landlords and employers are just looking up whatever you're picturing a "criminal record" looks like.
When volunteering at a high school, my police record check amounted to the "NO" box being checked for, "did the police find any reason to believe this individual would be a risk to vulnerable groups (elderly, children, disabled)?"
That being said, a lot of criminal proceedings are public record, I think? With a PACER account I can look up a pretty wild amount of stuff.
Depends on the situation. If you're trying to get a job in a bank, or for a larger organization with a standard battery of checks for all new hires, this isn't going to make much of a difference for you.
But let's say you're an independent plumber. There's a good chance that someone is going to google your name to see if you pop up on a review site or something similar as part of their standard, low-level vetting process. If the third hit is an article about you being involved in an out-of-character drunken bar fight years ago, it could really affect your business.
How many run-of-the-mill established professionals are subject to a CORI check? I'd guess less than half. How many are the subject of pre-hire, out-of-curiosity google searches? I'd guess most.
Also, old cases can be expunged or sealed by the court, if found appropriate. Your local newspaper, without a deliberate initiative like this, is unlikely update their archives even if you were completely cleared of involvement in a grisly crime for which you were a "person of interest."
Hell, even dating could be an issue.
Their initiative said it wasn't fair that well-heeled white professionals who could enlist the help of lawyers were far more likely to get that article about some drunk driving incident taken down while it was impossible for poorer people to do the same.
Some really interesting perspectives from that half of the political sphere lately:
"Yes, it's rewriting history, but it's for a good reason!"
"Yes, it's censorship, but it's for a good reason!"
"Yes, it's deplatforming and dehumanizing half the population, but it's for a good reason!"
"Yes, it's removing and limiting the rights we've enjoyed for hundreds of years, but it's for a good reason!"
"Yes, it's treating people differently based on the color of their skin again, but it's for a good reason!"
"Yes, we're hiring people based on the color of their skin rather than their ability, but it's for a good reason!"
"Yes, we're accepting people into college based on the color of their skin, but it's for a good reason!"
and so on...
Every evil regime thought and were constantly told they had a good reason for what they were doing. It wasn't like they were a bunch of evil people that wanted to do evil. They always were given the justification, the "good reason" for doing evil. They thought they were doing it for a good reason. They were never able to disconnect themselves from the brainwashing and really just actually look at what the factual reality of what they were doing was.
I don't care how much "good reason" you think you have, it doesn't make censorship not censorship, or racist policies not racist policies, or rewriting history anything but something straight out of 1984.
"We are not in the business of rewriting the past, but we want to update the record" - stuff like this just oozes doublespeak.
Don't know why you're getting downvoted. The cheering on of censorship is something that haunts me more daily, and will be remembered as a great failing of our civilization for hundreds of years if things get worse.
There's already numerous cases of censorship cheerleaders getting de-platformed themselves for some minute infraction, so at least while the world witch hunts itself we can enjoy watching these people get a taste of the politics they preach.
If you had a headline "Bob Smith accused of arson in the Big Factory fire, but later all charges are dropped" - how exactly is it rewriting history to say "A man charged of arson in the Big Factory fire, but later all charges are dropped"?
edit: Ok let me try and be clearer. I'm sure Bob Smith is a great guy who didn't deserve to be wrongly accused. But what about Rich Jackson who used his political clout to have his story reversed through this same process? And what if Rich Jackson then runs for office? What if he has all stories about him just harmlessly modified? What if you know the truth about Rich Jackson but nobody listens to you because there's literally no history of him? What if Rich comes after you next?
So random nobody Bob Smith who got railroaded by the system needs to keep getting railroaded, just in case someone powerful entirely unrelated to Bob tries to pull a fast one. Doesn't seem like a great system.
> I don't care how much "good reason" you think you have, it doesn't make censorship not censorship
Agreed. The problem isn't censorship, it's that people have this idea that censorship is inherently evil. I guess this stems from gross ignorance about how fucking stupid people in general are, and how they're taken advantage of by charlatans, to the detriment of society as a whole.
Watch these two (short, 2min) clips showing an interview of the darling of the GOP:
This is a video of a man who lied to get into office (about being a small businessman, about his accident derailing a Naval career, about being a constitutional expert, etc) and then used that platform to spread lies that led to insurrection and deaths.
It's simply irresponsible to let such filth continue to mislead people, and censoring him would be better for USA, and better for the planet.
> "Yes, it's treating people differently based on the color of their skin again, but it's for a good reason!"
People never stopped being treated differently for the colour of their skin.
But yes, however I'd say it's an exaggeration to say "half of the political sphere" fits that straw man you've just given. Now half of twitter, maybe...
> I don't care how much "good reason" you think you have, it doesn't make censorship not censorship, or racist policies not racist policies, or rewriting history anything but something straight out of 1984.
> "We are not in the business of rewriting the past, but we want to update the record" - stuff like this just oozes doublespeak.
Man, that word, "censorship," is really getting abused lately. It's almost like everyone's forgotten what it actually means, or can't be bothered to actually take the time to understand what they're using it to describe. As far as I can tell, the Boston Globe is not deleting anything (not that that would be censorship, either), just appending corrections/updates and maybe de-indexing some stories:
From the OP:
> What actions does this initiative involve? Will you delete stories? Will you remove names? What about Google?
> We have a number of options, including updating a story with new information and removing a story from search engine results. We consider every case on its own merits, and take the action appropriate based on the individual circumstances.
> Are you concerned about erasing history?
> We’re considering these on a case-by-case basis but we think the value of giving someone a fresh start often outweighs the historic value of keeping a story widely accessible long after an incident occurred. People’s lives aren’t static, they’re dynamic.
If this is censorship, so is the corrections page and new & updated editions of books.
Can you please speak more plainly? "[T]hat half of the political sphere"? "[D]eplatforming and dehumanizing half the population"? You seem to be using coded language to refer to a hodge-podge of unrelated things and blowing them up into some sort of strawman.
I don't see any intent to do any censorship or rewriting history here. It looks like the Boston Globe wants to make sure their past coverage doesn't produce unintended consequences from naive searches of people's names on the Internet. What do you think they're trying to do?
Seriously, it has been a while since I have seen a comment as uncharitable as that one at the top of the HN comments.
This move is simply a recognition that many of these stories about minor crimes can have a long lasting impact because of the SEO of a site like The Boston Globe's and the power of Google. That negative impact likely does a net harm to society as a whole as it actively works against rehabilitation efforts by serving as a scarlet letter for this person's entire life. Working to reduce that by removing these pages when they are no longer newsworthy isn't censorship, affirmative action, or anything else that OP it stating or hinting at. I truly don't understand being against a decision like this on the merits.
As someone who is very critical of fighting racism with racism and other similarly ill-conceived ideas, I don’t think this is censorship in any meaningful sense of the word and this certainly isn’t the right hill to die on with respect to wonky left wing policies. In fact, I don’t see how this policy is left wing at all... They mention that they’re doing it to avoid perpetuating racism or something, but the actual meat of the article doesn’t suggest that they’re doing any sort of progressive race testing with respect to whose records will be altered and whose won’t. The racial prelude seems to be empty virtue signaling, and the actual policy doesn’t seem to be very progressive at all; rather it appears to be perfectly egalitarian.
I am of the opinion to be able to change names frequently (lawfully ofcourse). The problem is if you try to change jobs or buy a house, even though its legal to change your name, the system is designed with a constant identity.
Years back I worked for customer service at The New York Times. I got a call. It was from a man asking if we could take down an article (short answer: no). It was a brief article from years back where, as a high-school teacher, he had been accused of an inappropriate relationship with a student.
The charges were dropped/withdrawn at some point, the article noted that in an update. Yet there was the article, with his name and easily findable. He said it had cost him jobs, relationships, and almost his engagement.
He told me charges were dropped because this person had also made false allegations against numerous others, and this was determined to be similar.
Assuming thats true, should he be able to clear this? I'm still not sure. There are a lot of reasons for/against.
Absolutely - and the name of the person making false charges should be known more clearly. The current risk of false charges is too low. Same thing with death penalty - if you are on death row and project innocence proves your total innocense - prosecutors should be fired.
Well that’s just awful. Changing the name is the only thing he could realistically do.
Clearing the history is dicey - internet doesn’t easily forget even when the NYT does. I believe it’s the NYT responsibility to not just report facts but to keep track of the externalities and put on work to repair them. In this case they could rewrite the article - still include the original but frame it with the context, the resolution (charges dropped), the layman explanation of resolution, etc.
Well it's up to the paper, but personally, I support papers re-evaluating their positions on this sort of thing.
You'll still be able to find the old article on archive.org et al, but what a paper publishes today should reflect what it stands for today. If the paper was wrong or unfair, what is wrong with modifying or removing the coverage which is served today? Is that really worse than printing a "correction" paragraph at the end of the original article?
Maybe publishers could implement a sort of "timeline" feature which shows how the organization's understanding of an event changed over time. But today, I can't see anything wrong with a newspaper accepting petitions to modify outdated coverage.
The problem at that point is employers' general widespread aversion to reputation risk, which manifests itself in all kinds of ways. Erasure of the past isn't the fix for that.
It sure would be a fix for the man from the anecdote. It sounds to me like there is a starving man begging for a morsel, and you're saying to him "No, just wait until society can develop a system to keep all people fed. Feeding you isn't a fix for the real issue".
I don’t think the parent is suggesting that the Times deny this man mercy, but rather that this shouldn’t be the general policy (rather, an angry mob shouldn’t be able to jeopardize one’s livelihood).
What are the reasons why the Times should keep his name? Surely we’ve moved past the whole “erring on the side of ruining someone’s life just in case the accusation turns out to be true” thing, right?
Reminds me of the film "Absence of Malice," directed by the great Sydney Pollack, starring Paul Newman and Sally Field.
"... That as a matter of law, the truth is irrelevant. We have no knowledge the story is false, therefore we're absent malice. We've been both reasonable and prudent, therefore we're not negligent. We may say whatever we like about Mr. Gallagher, and he is powerless to do us harm. Democracy is served."
I would even take it further and make it a law that if there is an online article about you, then you must be given a chance to attach your side of the story right at the last line, and if material developments have occurred (e.g. charges dropped) they must update the story at your request.
This seems like a nice gesture, but I can't bring myself to respect anything the Globe does while they STILL maintain the evilly dark pattern of allowing you to subscribe completely online, but requiring you to call and talk your way through their retention reps to unsubscribe.
European newspapers can be even worse. Le Monde, one the biggest French newspapers, requires its customers to unsubscribe via registered mail. This is even the case for digital-only subscriptions.
50 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 71.2 ms ] threadWhen volunteering at a high school, my police record check amounted to the "NO" box being checked for, "did the police find any reason to believe this individual would be a risk to vulnerable groups (elderly, children, disabled)?"
That being said, a lot of criminal proceedings are public record, I think? With a PACER account I can look up a pretty wild amount of stuff.
(No need to downvote this observation...)
But let's say you're an independent plumber. There's a good chance that someone is going to google your name to see if you pop up on a review site or something similar as part of their standard, low-level vetting process. If the third hit is an article about you being involved in an out-of-character drunken bar fight years ago, it could really affect your business.
How many run-of-the-mill established professionals are subject to a CORI check? I'd guess less than half. How many are the subject of pre-hire, out-of-curiosity google searches? I'd guess most.
Also, old cases can be expunged or sealed by the court, if found appropriate. Your local newspaper, without a deliberate initiative like this, is unlikely update their archives even if you were completely cleared of involvement in a grisly crime for which you were a "person of interest."
Hell, even dating could be an issue.
Their initiative said it wasn't fair that well-heeled white professionals who could enlist the help of lawyers were far more likely to get that article about some drunk driving incident taken down while it was impossible for poorer people to do the same.
"Yes, it's rewriting history, but it's for a good reason!" "Yes, it's censorship, but it's for a good reason!" "Yes, it's deplatforming and dehumanizing half the population, but it's for a good reason!" "Yes, it's removing and limiting the rights we've enjoyed for hundreds of years, but it's for a good reason!" "Yes, it's treating people differently based on the color of their skin again, but it's for a good reason!" "Yes, we're hiring people based on the color of their skin rather than their ability, but it's for a good reason!" "Yes, we're accepting people into college based on the color of their skin, but it's for a good reason!" and so on...
Every evil regime thought and were constantly told they had a good reason for what they were doing. It wasn't like they were a bunch of evil people that wanted to do evil. They always were given the justification, the "good reason" for doing evil. They thought they were doing it for a good reason. They were never able to disconnect themselves from the brainwashing and really just actually look at what the factual reality of what they were doing was.
I don't care how much "good reason" you think you have, it doesn't make censorship not censorship, or racist policies not racist policies, or rewriting history anything but something straight out of 1984.
"We are not in the business of rewriting the past, but we want to update the record" - stuff like this just oozes doublespeak.
Do you think newspaper corrections [1] are totalitarian? Because it sounds like this is basically a process for adding corrections to old stories.
[1] i.e. those little notes at the bottom of the story where they apologize and correct their mistakes
edit: Ok let me try and be clearer. I'm sure Bob Smith is a great guy who didn't deserve to be wrongly accused. But what about Rich Jackson who used his political clout to have his story reversed through this same process? And what if Rich Jackson then runs for office? What if he has all stories about him just harmlessly modified? What if you know the truth about Rich Jackson but nobody listens to you because there's literally no history of him? What if Rich comes after you next?
Agreed. The problem isn't censorship, it's that people have this idea that censorship is inherently evil. I guess this stems from gross ignorance about how fucking stupid people in general are, and how they're taken advantage of by charlatans, to the detriment of society as a whole.
Watch these two (short, 2min) clips showing an interview of the darling of the GOP:
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1353144128188542977 https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1353147167523782657
This is a video of a man who lied to get into office (about being a small businessman, about his accident derailing a Naval career, about being a constitutional expert, etc) and then used that platform to spread lies that led to insurrection and deaths.
It's simply irresponsible to let such filth continue to mislead people, and censoring him would be better for USA, and better for the planet.
People never stopped being treated differently for the colour of their skin.
But yes, however I'd say it's an exaggeration to say "half of the political sphere" fits that straw man you've just given. Now half of twitter, maybe...
> "We are not in the business of rewriting the past, but we want to update the record" - stuff like this just oozes doublespeak.
Man, that word, "censorship," is really getting abused lately. It's almost like everyone's forgotten what it actually means, or can't be bothered to actually take the time to understand what they're using it to describe. As far as I can tell, the Boston Globe is not deleting anything (not that that would be censorship, either), just appending corrections/updates and maybe de-indexing some stories:
From the OP:
> What actions does this initiative involve? Will you delete stories? Will you remove names? What about Google?
> We have a number of options, including updating a story with new information and removing a story from search engine results. We consider every case on its own merits, and take the action appropriate based on the individual circumstances.
> Are you concerned about erasing history?
> We’re considering these on a case-by-case basis but we think the value of giving someone a fresh start often outweighs the historic value of keeping a story widely accessible long after an incident occurred. People’s lives aren’t static, they’re dynamic.
If this is censorship, so is the corrections page and new & updated editions of books.
I don't see any intent to do any censorship or rewriting history here. It looks like the Boston Globe wants to make sure their past coverage doesn't produce unintended consequences from naive searches of people's names on the Internet. What do you think they're trying to do?
This move is simply a recognition that many of these stories about minor crimes can have a long lasting impact because of the SEO of a site like The Boston Globe's and the power of Google. That negative impact likely does a net harm to society as a whole as it actively works against rehabilitation efforts by serving as a scarlet letter for this person's entire life. Working to reduce that by removing these pages when they are no longer newsworthy isn't censorship, affirmative action, or anything else that OP it stating or hinting at. I truly don't understand being against a decision like this on the merits.
The charges were dropped/withdrawn at some point, the article noted that in an update. Yet there was the article, with his name and easily findable. He said it had cost him jobs, relationships, and almost his engagement.
He told me charges were dropped because this person had also made false allegations against numerous others, and this was determined to be similar.
Assuming thats true, should he be able to clear this? I'm still not sure. There are a lot of reasons for/against.
Clearing the history is dicey - internet doesn’t easily forget even when the NYT does. I believe it’s the NYT responsibility to not just report facts but to keep track of the externalities and put on work to repair them. In this case they could rewrite the article - still include the original but frame it with the context, the resolution (charges dropped), the layman explanation of resolution, etc.
You'll still be able to find the old article on archive.org et al, but what a paper publishes today should reflect what it stands for today. If the paper was wrong or unfair, what is wrong with modifying or removing the coverage which is served today? Is that really worse than printing a "correction" paragraph at the end of the original article?
Maybe publishers could implement a sort of "timeline" feature which shows how the organization's understanding of an event changed over time. But today, I can't see anything wrong with a newspaper accepting petitions to modify outdated coverage.
Leaving it up to the paper basically means the rich get to rewrite history but the poor don't.
"... That as a matter of law, the truth is irrelevant. We have no knowledge the story is false, therefore we're absent malice. We've been both reasonable and prudent, therefore we're not negligent. We may say whatever we like about Mr. Gallagher, and he is powerless to do us harm. Democracy is served."
I would even take it further and make it a law that if there is an online article about you, then you must be given a chance to attach your side of the story right at the last line, and if material developments have occurred (e.g. charges dropped) they must update the story at your request.
https://www.google.com/search?q=brian+mcgrory+boston+globe
Keeping record is the most basic function of journalism. Without that, then what's the point?
If America were 100% white, would that mean that everyone's negative press should stain their reputation and impede their success forever?
Even if you leave names in the story but you stop search engines reading the names.
It feels like a lost cause, but search is the real culprit here.