Telegraph frustrates 'right to be forgotten' ruling by drawing attention to stories removed from Google
The Telegraph is doing its bit to frustrate the controversial 'right to be forgotten' ruling by deliberately drawing attention to stories being removed from Google.
The right to be forgotten was brought into force by the European Court of Justice in May and allows individuals to demand links about them be withdrawn from search engines if they are "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant".
Interpreting what links are "no longer relevant" has proved the subject of some debate and in recent days the Telegraph has been highlighting its "true stories" that have been unlisted by Google.
Its latest piece points to stories about a student who was convicted of drink-driving after crashing his car in a police chase and a sales director who “terrorised” a shopkeeper and his wife while stealing beer before a football match.
Matthew Sparkes, the Telegraph's deputy head of technology who has been documenting the deletions, likened the situation to 'the Streisand effect', the principle that in trying to remove something from the internet you will actually draw more attention to it.
My time today will be spent writing about old stories people have requested be removed from Google under new EU rules #BarbraStreisandEffect
— Matthew Sparkes (@Sparkes) August 15, 2014
As pointed out by the Wall Street Journal, however, in an interesting twist of fate some of the Telegraph's own pieces about the right to be forgotten have vanished from its own website. Danny Sullivan, founding editor of Marketing Land, has been keeping track of the mysterious disappearances.
Odd @Telegraph has removed two stories about Google removing two Telegraph stories. Now my head hurts. pic.twitter.com/I9ksrRhMY8 — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) August 15, 2014The plot thickens.