Hidden from Google lists EU 'right to be forgotten' terms
A US web developer has set up a website to list items omitted, erased, or censored by Google’s search engine due to the European Court of Justice’s recent 'right to be forgotten' ruling.
Users suggest censored pieces in the comments section
‘Hidden from Google’ is devoted to listing search results removed from Google in Europe after the European Court of Justice deemed that all citizens have the right to be forgotten by search engines.
The site now contains eleven links to hidden stories with a record of the blocked search terms included.
The content remains online but Google has removed links to it. Now searches, with blocked terms, are being directed to 'Hidden from Google', which aims to "archive the actions of censorship on the Internet".
The site read: “It is up to the reader to decide whether our liberties are being upheld or violated by the recent rulings by the EU.”
Critics of 'Hidden from Google' have said that censored stories will be brought into the public eye, even more than they were previously.
Afaq Tariq, the web developer who created the site last month, said: “There is an information gap there and, where you can verify examples, you can curate a list.
"It is not as if the links are going away, it is just Google results within Europe that they are removed from, so you have this before-and-after picture with Google US.
"Some seem to have been removed, but are not any longer - that is part of the reason the list remains short. Until I can verify that an article is being censored consistently across European domains, I cannot put it on the list in good conscience.”
The developer said he initially wanted to set up a website to test software but noticed that no one was archiving right to be forgotten stories .
Some of the stories included in the list is coverage of Portuguese child abusers and George Osborne’s brother’s Islam conversion.