Right to a Private Life versus Freedom of Speech

Great Debates
1

The European Court ruling over Google search results has resulted in previous threads here. There is obviously a conflict between right to privacy and right to free speech.

Europe seems more inclined to value Privacy over Freedom of Speech, whereas the US seems to value Freedom of Speech over privacy. This is reflected in the basic laws of European countries which individually guarantee various rights to privacy as well as free speech, and the European Convention on Human Rights which includes a clause being interpreted to include a right to privacy. The US constitution is large on freedom of speech but largely silent on privacy.

I am posting this in response to the internet action of Doxxing- publishing private information about individuals or groups as a means of exerting pressure on them.

This involves outing IRL IDs for twitter or forum users, or publication of home addresses and other details of directors and managers of companies carrying out contentious businesses, to the latest manifestation of the publication of the home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and children’s schools of the LAPD officers who shot dead the vagrant a few days ago.

How do we balance a right to privacy against free speech in the age of the internet?

2

I think privacy is on the ways out, whatever happens legally.

3

I’m not sure what method could reasonable be used to prevent doxxing. The thing is, most of doxxing is similar in method to basic intelligence gathering – instead of super-sleuths making huge discoveries, it’s just putting together a huge amount of publicly available information. For example, you start with a username and find every other account with the same name. Then you search those accounts for more details, and so on. If you can get a real name and a city or state, you can use reverse white pages to find an address and often a phone number. None of these steps would be illegal on their own, and the final step is nothing more than releasing public information in a highly consolidated form.

Probably the best cause of action is to hope that a consensus forms among private web owners not to tolerate doxxing, and to promote internet awareness among people at large. There are exceptions, but the internet can’t find out anything unless people say it.