The fact this tool even exists is damning to google. "We automatically index and show people pictures of minors. Now we've fixed this by allowing minors to tell us!"

Pick one:

Private by design

Make it easier for strangers to track you with out you knowing

Im not sure it's damning to google as much as to the rest of the internet.

It's indexed by Google; somebody else hosted it publicly

Broad swaths of behavior by the spying tech giants just needs to be outlawed. Discussions about how to mitigate the harm aren't going to fix much. The harmful behavior should be outright banned. "Google and Facebook just have to creepily spy on people, force some workers to look at horrible images, et c., to operate". OK, cool—sounds like they shouldn't operate, then, if that's true.

To privacy or not to privacy is not the question; the question is privacy for whom.

Google indexes the public internet. If its indexed on google it was uploaded, likely by the minor in question not having set their privacy settings on their Facebook.

Google is doing more than they should have to here.

Why is it damning? It’s not obvious to me, apologies.

I'm not the guy you're asking but what jumped out to me is that this change creates a database of images of minors and the damning/ironic part is that these are images of people who don't want to be easily searchable to begin with. Imagine the damage if this somehow leaks.

If my wording above sounds convoluted then let me paraphrase: a blacklist is a database too. Google's blacklist will contain assured images of minors because the minors/guardians reported them as such.

Sure it can be hashed/MLed/Bloomfiltered instead of a tabular listing but someone with enough patience and resources can probably make something out of it. (To be honest I don't want to peddle FUD and I'm speaking out of my depth here so I'd be glad to hear an assessment from someone with qualified experience in this area.)

This would be greatly alleviated if everyone was allowed to remove their images in search. I can't help but think it would help https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28216733 .

So what do you think the solution is? Given that these images are already on the web anyway for people to see.

Exactly, why only for under 18s? This should be available for everybody.

I am playing devils advocate here, but if you are the solider in Abu Gharaib torture photos, I am not sure you should have a right to purge the internet search of those photos.

So there had to be a middle ground between freedom to find information and an individual's privacy. Do you want Google drawing that line?

If you are the soldier in Abu Ghraib torture photos, you should be judged by the court of law, not bullied by neighbours and online mob who make mistakes too often.

> Do you want Google drawing that line?

Yes, this is the correct question.

They have already drawn that line, or at least the EU right to be forgotten has. All sorts of results are missing when searching from an EU member state (or the UK). I'm not sure I agree with it, but we seem we'll past the line already...

That is a difference in the European understanding of punishment and especially redemption. After your punishment was served, what redemption is possible when your acts cannot be forgotten?

The dignity of the human being is untouchable (paragraph 1 of the German constitution). What dignity can you expect when a nude picture of you exist online. Or of a stupid speech you gave. Or of your childhood carneval costume as a Nazi. Or when mug shot of DUI incident is online. Or when your stupid, disgusting, humiliating behavior as a soldier in Iraq is documented everywhere after you served for your war crime. When you have the concept of redemption in your society, than it needs to be feasible to be redeemed.

Yes I understand that there are extreme examples but it falls in the same category if you consider the dignity of the human being as the most precious thing.

So a consequence, the right to be forgotten exists.

But it's just an internet search of photos isn't it? You'll still get links to news articles and write-ups and anyone reading about Abu Gharaib tortures will still see these and the accompanying photos. A prospective employer googles your name, it could still come up, just not the photos.

Yeah this is probably why. If this was accessible to you and me, it would be accessible to every ghoul in the public eye. Kids are the only group that can unambiguously be granted unconditional total privacy.

Probably because of GDPR, and similar laws coming into place. You cannot actually automatically hold people under 18 to whatever terms they've consented to on Facebook etc. like you an for adults. You'd actually be required to get their parents consent, which obviously they don't.

I think I might be missing something. I don't see any mention in the post regarding a tool being "introduced."

Click link, ctrl+f "introduce"

>In the coming weeks, we’ll introduce a new policy that enables anyone under the age of 18, or their parent or guardian, to request the removal of their images from Google Image results.

It wouldn't be a web search but a web index by then.

I think I have an answer. All photos of under 18's left in the database, will be used by Apple(and others), for their hashes.

Because many criminals, businessmen and politicians will find this tool very useful for them?

But it just removes photos from image search; AFAICT text search results are unaltered. Perhaps I would no longer see Boris Johnson failing to comb his hair in Google Images but I can still read articles about it and they will still have accompanying photos.

Politicians can already use it with the right-to-be-forgotten-style national policies