Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Privacy Facebook Google The Internet Your Rights Online

Right To Be Forgotten? Web Privacy Debate in Italy After Women's Suicide (ndtv.com) 424

The suicide of a woman who battled for months to have a video of her having sex removed from the internet is fuelling debate in Italy on the "right to be forgotten" online. The 31-year-old, identified as Tiziana, was found hanged at her aunt's home in Mugnano, close to Naples in the country's south on Tuesday, reports Agence France-Presse. From the report: Her death came a year after she sent a video of herself having sex to some friends, including her ex-boyfriend, to make him jealous. The video and her name soon found their way to the web and went viral, fuelling mockery of the woman online. The footage has been viewed by almost a million internet users. In a bid to escape the humiliation, Tiziana quit her job, moved to Tuscany and tried to change her name, but her nightmare went on. The words "You're filming? Bravo," spoken by the woman to her lover in the video, have become a derisive joke online, and the phrase has been printed on T-shirts, smartphone cases and other items. After a long court battle, Tiziana recently won a "right to be forgotten" ruling ordering the video to be removed from various sites and search engines, including Facebook.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Right To Be Forgotten? Web Privacy Debate in Italy After Women's Suicide

Comments Filter:
  • by Anonymous Coward
    but actions shouldn't be remembered
    • When Brendan Eich was "outed" as an opponent of "gay marriage", the online bullies forced his resignation from Mozilla's top job.

      When blamed [slashdot.org] for the resulting degradation of Mozilla software's quality, the bullies insist [slashdot.org], it was their First Amendment right to criticize and boycott Mr. Eich — and that he should have known, that "words have consequences" and censored himself.

      Resigning is no different from suicide in this case — a person is driven to an unpleasant and unwanted action by the words

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        the bullies insist [slashdot.org], it was their First Amendment right to criticize and boycott Mr. Eich

        ... and they were right. They do indeed have the right to speak and boycott.

        Resigning is no different from suicide in this case

        Except the resignation was driven by constitutionally protected speech, and the suicide was not. Even if you want to argue that she had no privacy rights, she still owned the copyright on the video, and no one else had the right to copy or publish it without her explicit permission.

  • Bravo indeed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by qbast ( 1265706 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:44PM (#52901181)
    "after she sent a video of herself having sex to some friends, including her ex-boyfriend, to make him jealous."

    Stupidity kills.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Absolutely. This is all her fault.

    • Re:Bravo indeed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tyler Durden ( 136036 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @01:00PM (#52901341)

      Yeah - if an ex sends a video of her having sex to make you jealous, sharing it with the world at large is pretty much the ultimate F U response.

      "So do you want to see just how not jealous I am?" *click*

      • He almost certainly didn't get a license of sharing the video with the world. If he lived in GB, he'd be now in prison for copyright violation, and the punishment for putting the video online would've been worse than if he'd raped her instead as revenge. Or at least when the new law gets into place.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Stupidity kills.

      ... And sooner or later most of us act stupidly.

      And that's if you're lucky. You see it's our connections to other people that makes us vulnerable. In particular there's nothing like the successful engagement of the gonads to turn someone smart into a dumbass. It's easy to maintain your illusion of invulnerability if your life is spent in your parents' basement watching porn and posting condescending Internet screeds.

      I'd rather be what TR called "the man in the area", balls and all.

    • In the 90s, I lived in San Francisco. There was (and still is) a well known race called Bay to Breakers. While there are serious runners, the race is best known for thousands of people in costumes and various states of undress, including naked or body paint.

      A drop dead gorgeous friend wanted to run in body paint but was afraid to run alone and asked me if I would join (in body paint, of course). Being gallant, I said sure (ok, perhaps part of me wanted to see her naked in body paint).

      If you did this today
    • She committed suicide? Video or it didn't happen.

      Seriously, this is beyond stupid. She was the one guilty of revenge porn. Why should anyone treat this differently than when the guy does it?

    • Does this qualify her for a Darwin award?

  • by Archangel Michael ( 180766 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:49PM (#52901239) Journal

    You're asking for something that is impossible, to be a "Right"

    The "online" part is irrelevant (and just as impossible). I can no more "forget" on demand short of you lobotomizing me, and you don't have that right.

    So, lets stop tossing words like "rights" around, when they cannot apply.

    BTW, she handled it very poorly. She could have milked it (trademarked the phrase) and become a famous porn star, with a catch phrase and all. Embrace that which makes you famous (like the Kardashians) and you'll be both Rich and Famous.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      The "right to be forgotten" isn't about brainwashing. It's about record retention.

      • Who's record was it, once she gave it away?

        • by hey! ( 33014 )

          That is the very issue in question: what privacy interests an individual enjoys with respect to information that is in other people's possession. Your argument completely begs the question.

          I suggest you actually educate yourself on information privacy issues and law before taking such an unequivocal position.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Maybe she aspired to something greater than porn, an industry that at the best of times does not treat people well. She wasn't asking for people to erase their memories either, just to have Facebook block the video from being shared which it entirely within its power to do.

      People make mistakes. Europe is not like the US, we don't punish people for the rest of their lives in all but the most exceptional cases.

  • by citylivin ( 1250770 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:54PM (#52901293)

    "she sent a video of herself having sex to some friends"

    How about don't use your real name online? Just because everyone in the world seems to have abandoned that concept in the last 15 years doesn't make it any less important, or relevant.

    This is not a problem for the internet, its a problem of novice internet users emailing sex tapes around. I would have some sympathy if she was hacked, but she clearly brought this on herself. We all make mistakes, but we don't all make fools of our self online using our real information. That's a fairly specific choice she made. It may not have been thought through, but let that be a lesson to everyone who decides emailing a sex tape around is a good idea.

  • What has been seen cannot be unseen. What has been posted, once downloaded by anyone at all, cannot be unposted.

    I've taken things down at the request of the party filmed, even though it has always been innocent. (You are NOT going to be passed over for promotion because of a video of you breakdancing while drunk.) In these cases, it was not too late. Hardly anyone "scrapes" YouTube, they just watch and move on. But if your video has already become a meme? You're screwed (no pun intended). All the shouting i

    • On the other side of the coin, I think that everyone has a right to control their own image and content. What may make sense at one phase of your life may not make sense later on.

      People change as they get older. Someone should not have to live the rest of their lives paying for a single mistake.

      I know that it is not a popular view point, but I do support the "right to be forgotten".

      I don't think it is impossible to achieve either. Sure, once out in the public domain, it will never be fully erased. But that

  • Are you for real? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stkris ( 1843186 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @01:01PM (#52901357)
    The four comments on this story all blame the woman for her own stupidity?

    Are you guys for real? Yes I assume you are guys.

    Just because someone makes a stupid mistake we don't have the right to keep on blasting her for it! And she asked please would you stop and leave me alone. And the idiots still kept on pestering her. Making t-shirts? I cannot belive it! Sure - it's not illegal to do that but the people doing it place themselves square into the neanderthal part of the intelligence and compassion scales! I bet you guys know how to google - so don't just take my word for it - but an environment in which you are continously beeing harrassed can cause all kinds of damage in a persons soul. Some people in Italy and on the net really should think hard and long about their own behaviour! Are you all 13 years old? I don't think so!

    And then to come here and you all continue the blame fest on her for beeing harassed and mobbed enough to take her own life? HELLO! She took her own life. That is no joke!

    I had to thaw up my old account for this because I'm shocked and ashamed of what Slashdot has became.
    • "Just because someone makes a stupid mistake we don't have the right to keep on blasting her for it!"

      Actually, you do have the right. It's not morally acceptable, it's bullying, but it is free speech. I do wish people would be a little more responsible of their mocking of other people. None of us are immune to becoming the next "idiot on the web".

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      She did a stupid, vain thing on the internet and got made a laughingstock by millions as a result, same as Tron Guy, Star Wars Kid, Chris Crocker, or any number of other internet 'celebrities.' I doubt you launched to the defense of them, though. Wonder what's different here? Hmm...

    • Wait, who else is to blame for the woman's stupidity besides herself?

      • The guy (assuming) who posted the private video to a public forum. THAT is who deserves the blame, and the bullying.

        • by NatasRevol ( 731260 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @02:22PM (#52902223) Journal

          You are completely and utterly wrong.

          1. She engaged in consensual sex act.
          2. She approved of it being filmed (Bravo!)
          3. She sent it, unbidden, to former lover & friends.

          Those were her choices. There was never ANY agreement that the video was private. And most assuredly, the recipients would not have agreed to it. She gave up her privacy when she CHOSE to send the video to others, without any agreement in place.

          They had the freedom to do what they wanted with it. She tried to embarrass her ex-lover by sending it, so he turned around and embarrassed her by sharing it further.

          The ONLY one at fault is her.

        • Sounds like he was just hitting back. Remember the first act here was with malicious intent. She sent him that video for a reason, and that wasn't because they were in a happy relationship.

          She's both stupid and a bully.

    • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      What part of "she was quite happy to screw up her ex's life but coudn't take it when her own shit started to come back at her" are you not getting?.

    • by ranton ( 36917 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @01:37PM (#52901747)

      Having sympathy for the woman and having outrage that these kind of stupid decisions end up creating even more stupid laws are not mutually exclusive. Having more outrage about laws that affect billions of people (even if only slightly) than sympathy for a single human life is also quite natural, consider 150,000 people die each day.

      If there was no such thing as Right to be Forgotten laws, there would be nothing but sympathy for this woman. But considering the political climate it is reasonable most of us are upset at the people peeing in the pool everyone else has to swim in.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Oh they're for real.

      We live in the golden age of priggery. The salacious tone of the posts make it a little harder to see, but the essential quality of any prig isn't what he's for or against; it's that petty, self-righteous tut-tutting.

      This newfound possibility of being a foul-minded, vulgar prig is what makes this the Golden Age.

    • What did you expect? That people laud her wisdom? She was somewhere between 30 and 31 years old when she sent a sex video of herself to her then ex partner to hurt him and to other people. She harassed her ex, and by sending it to (I assume) mutual friends she also humiliated him within their social circle. She is not really a victim here. If she could not handle the heat, she should not have lit the fire. No sympathy. Really, none.

      To the other commentator who mentions rape culture: Do you have even the sli

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It might be illegal. Driving someone to suicide is illegal in many places. Getting t-shirts printed and continuing to harass her after she asked them to stop quite possibly opens them up to prosecution.

    • by BarbaraHudson ( 3785311 ) <barbara.jane.hudson@nospAM.icloud.com> on Friday September 16, 2016 @02:19PM (#52902187) Journal
      Totally disagree. She made the video expressly to humiliate her ex-boyfriend. She distributed it to his family and friends. That's called revenge porn.

      Nobody gets a free pass on this regardless of their sex. Anything else sends the message that women need to be protected from the consequences of their own decisions because they are women. Your comment is both sexist and misogynistic - if it was the ex making sex videos of himself and sending it to her family and friends in an attempt to humiliate her, and she spread it around, we'd be laughing at the dumbass and celebrating his Darwin award. Let's not have double standards based solely on sex - it's demeaning to women.

      • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

        I'm assuming from your username you are actually female, in which case Thank you for being female and also understanding the true meaning of equality, and standing up for it!
        It boggles my mind how so many women apparently think a clear double-standard is somehow self-evidently right, and worse, how so many pathetic manginas agree with them.

    • Thank you for being the one to say something; you're a good person. The other comments here are unbelievable. It's sickening that we live in an age where an entire country of people can quickly turn on a person for something they did in their private life and ridicule them until they feel that death is the only escape. And perhaps the worst part is that so many people don't seem to recognize the bigger picture of it happening.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      The four comments on this story all blame the woman for her own stupidity? Are you guys for real? Yes I assume you are guys.

      Yes and Yes.

      Read the story, the woman made a sex tape and sent it to her ex to make him jealous. Thats where it all started two acts of supreme stupidity:
      1. Making a sex tape. If she hadn't of recorded herself doing it then there's be nothing to see.

      2. Sending it to her ex as an attack. If you do record yourself on the job, its best not to share it... doubly so with anyone you don't explicitly trust (as in with your life). This bit is triply stupid because she sent it to someone she didn't like and

  • Modern society's attitudes to young women and sex are basically a fucked up mish mash of caveman reproductive instincts and simplistic religious bigotry. By making sex rarer, subject to various social conventions and expectations, you cultivate perverse fascinations, and inhibit maturity.

  • They might as well create a right for the murdered to be "Restored to life" while we're legislation impossible acts.

    Realistically - information isn't going to be removed from the internet. It's like playing the world's worst game of whack-a-mole.

    I do have sympathy for most victims of leaked nudes photos or video - this one is a tad hard to feel bad for because she intentionally sent it to an ex she was on bad terms with. Generally though - that's a bit of an exception to the rule.

    That said, despite it bein

  • The internet is a very cruel place. We see the worst aspects of the human race on a daily basis. I don't know how we fix that.
  • Is similar to the "right to remain silent" ... you have the "right" the REAL question is ... do you have the ability?
  • So this women deliberately had sex with multiple men at the same time. Ok, I understand that. I've had my share of threesomes & orgys/âoegangbangs" and the ladies always loved it.

    She had herself filmed while doing so. For free. Ok, I get that too. Some people dig this, and if she and her lovers looked good doing sex she'd being doing other people a favour with nice free amateur pron. Good thing.

    Here it gets weird: She had herself filmed to make someone - aparently her ex-lover - jealous. Thats imature, silly and dumb, but whatever.

    She sent her ex-lover and some other peole the video. Ok. Fits her plan and intent.

    Then she gets hysterical as the video ends up on the internet. Calls for legal measures to have the video removed, gets depressed and finally kills herself. ... I mean WTF??!?

    Isn't it blatantly obvious to *anybody* that step 2 already basically guarantees that your sextape will end up on the internet with anywhere between a few hundred up to a few million seeing it? What is wrong with people? ... This whole szenario is so patently absurd I almost have difficulty believing it.

    I seriously don't get it.

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday September 17, 2016 @06:23PM (#52908835)

    Why is this a surprise? Why do some people think others should be protected against their own, severe stupidity?

    Seriously, it was completely clear and obvious that this video would end up on the Internet. After all, she published it (by sending it to her ex) without conditions or restrictions on its use. That somebody utterly stupid (sorry for speaking ill of the dead, but it is a fact here) may take their own life when they realize how massively they have screwed up is also not new.

    There is _zero_ need to do anything here. Stupid people will always be around and it is not possible to make the world safe for them. A lot of damage can be done by trying though, so the effort itself is utterly evil.

"May your future be limited only by your dreams." -- Christa McAuliffe

Working...