In Dennis Baron’s The right to be
forgotten, he begins by introducing the concept of the Internet being a
place where once something is posted online, it is gone forever. By that he
means that once something is uploaded, it can be copied, archived and sent to
anyone, without the authors knowledge. He makes himself relatable to the
audience by using examples that are easy to follow and understand. After saying
that the Internet is a black hole of sorts, he states that a study showed much
online information is lost within a year. He then relates to the audience by
saying, “And
we’ve all had the frustration of failing to find something that we read
online just the week before” (Baron). Baron introduces this concept
of everything being lost on the Internet with a quote from the Roman poet
Horace. Horace advises young writers not to put their words out into the world
too soon. “The word, once sent, can never be recalled” (Baron). This is still
true today, but in a more modern sense of email and social media. The exigency
of this article is that people have a right to privacy, but when things are
posted on the Internet, it is hard to keep things private.
In Grant-Davie’s article Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents,
he states that exigence is the matter or motivation of the discourse. Grant-Davie
states that readers should be asking not only why is the discourse needed, but
also what it is about and what it should accomplish. Also in Grant-Davie’s
essay, he defines the rhetorical situation as “a situation where a
speaker or writer sees a need to change reality and sees that the change may be
effected through rhetorical discourse” (Grant-Davie 265). In this essay, I
believe that Baron is attempting to change the idea that everything is private,
especially with the growth of the Internet.
As an example for this concept of nothing
being forgotten, he explains the case of Google
v. Costeia. He explains in 1998, the Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia published an announcement
that Mario Costeja Gonzalez’s real estate was seized and would be auctioned
off. Then, eleven years later, Gonzalez found that anyone searching for him via
Google could see this post. He then sued both the newspaper and Google to have
the article removed, along with any links to it. He claimed that it was no
longer relevant to him and could hurt his future endeavors. Baron states, “Google v. Costeja Gonzalez represents a
sweeping defense of Internet privacy, but it’s also a blow to free speech
online” (Baron).
Baron then explains
that, “The
European Charter guarantees both free speech and an explicit right to privacy.
In its deliberations, the European Court of Justice found that there is also
a right to be forgotten implicit in the right to privacy” (Baron). This
right to be forgotten trumps the competing rights of journalists to express
themselves. The Court ruled that Google must take down its links to that notice
but that the newspaper has a right to keep the article in their archives.
Because of this ruling, search engines must
now respond to any requests to remove the link, even if the information is
true. The European Court of Justice made it clear that not every case is
honored and the decision will be made case-by-case. Baron writes that recently
the issue became more complicated, “the European Commission has
drafted a new General Data Protection
Regulation, on track for adoption later this year, that will
take what is now an implied “right to be forgotten" and encode a
new "right to be forgotten and to erasure" into EU law” (Baron). This
means that instead of just having to delete links to the information, the
information itself would have to be deleted as well. In the case of
Gonzalez, Google would have to erase the links and the newspaper would have to
delete the article from its archives.
The European Commission’s fact sheet shows
critics that this right to be forgotten does not allow privacy to trump all
other laws. The fact is that Google, or any other company, will decide
case-by-case which items to remove. Baron explains that the sheer weight of the
task means that there will not be an even number of requests approved, but
rather a random decision. He finishes up the article by saying that Gonzalez
will no longer be known as a guy with past debt, but he will be known as the
guy who sued Google and won.
The intertext of this article comes more from
court case filings and information about the laws that were involved. The text
is fact based and taken from other articles, such as the debt announcement, as
well as the statements of the Court. The rhetorical situation overall in the
article is that while people do have this right, it pans out to be much more
complicated than that. Baron’s exigencies fit well with the information that
Grant-Davie gives in his article. He saw the situation that could be changed
and went for it. Baron gives his audience the information to make their own
decisions on the subject, while still giving facts that are important to make
said decision.
Sources:
Baron,
Dennis. "The Web of Language." The Web of Language. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 08 Sept. 2014.
Grant-Davie, Keith.
"Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents." Rhetoric
Review 15.2 (1997): 264-79. Web.
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