Owen,
You may wish to consider how vindictive the News of the World was in its approach to its victims. One only need to note their favoured technique. They would sting an unwitting target. Gather some salacious details. They would then approach them for an exclusive interview or story, with the promise that they would withhold the story if they did an interview. Once the person had agreed, they would encourage the story to leak and then run another article explaining what had happened to "set the public record straight". (The same approach can be seen in the film LA Confidential so it did not start or end with NOTW)
Any editor can re-run a story as long as they like and whenever they like and make the claim it is in the public interest. One need only note the way that Andrew Neil, no shrinking violet nor without the resources to defend himself in the public domain, was treated to a similar, if more juvenile, treatment by Private Eye over his private life.
For the most part the public are not interested, though they might be amused by, the internecine battles within the media. In many ways, it is like the mafia. As long as other mobsters are getting killed and not civilians, the police and the authorities are not excessively aggressive in their approach. Once it involves "civilians", the situation changes. The RTBF will help address the civilians and those purporting to be civilians, but it will not help the professionals.
The media has long been a favoured weapon of the powerful to enforce a social discipline upon the community and the right to be forgotten is not going to change that process with or without death threats. Why kill someone when you can have the community turn against them?
Despite this rather depressing view I have presented, it is much more "civilized" than what it replaced given that people would be murdered or assassinated for their disagreements. Now instead of killing people, we see their reputations killed and RTBF will not stop that.
Best,
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Owen Thomas
Sent: 08 September 2014 17:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MASSMAIL]The 'right to be forgotten' and pondering over a cheese sandwich
While on my lunch today I spotted a story about a hapless Come Dine With Me 'star' who was complaining to the BBC that every time they repeated the show he appeared on, he received new death threats from people both outraged at his rudeness to another guest and simultaneously unaware to mark the passage of time.
I'm now wondering whether the existence of such threats would tip the public interest balance in continued repetition of some TV shows in favour of a disguntled 'star' who (for whatever reason) had become weary of being offered up to the TV watching public as a 'journalistic, literary or artistic material', thus giving (admittedly, a relatively few) people a legitimate reason to halt incessant repeats?
It's obviously a rather different proposition to true classics of art or literature being on travelling display or reprinted in numerous worldwide editions, but it would be interesting to see what the ICO or Tribunal would make of a DPA-based argument from an aggrieved 'TV appearee'.
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