• Bad chords. A European musician's attempt to stop a negative concert review from continuing to appear in Internet search results is raising questions about whether the EU's "right to be forgotten" ruling could prevent the Internet from being a source of objective truth.  Established in May by the European Court of Justice, the right to be forgotten ruling requires search engines like Google to remove "inadequate, irrelevant or... excessive" links that appear as a result of searches of an EC member's name. Pursuant to the ruling, European pianist Dejan Lazic asked the Washington Post to remove a tepid review of one of his Kennedy Center concerts from Google search results. Lazic's request was denied because it was posed to the wrong party—the right to be forgotten ruling applies to Internet search engines, not publishers—but it nevertheless serves as an example of a request that could be granted under the right to be forgotten rule, and that, arguesWashington Post Internet culture columnist Caitlin Dewey, is "terrifying." Dewey writes that such a result "torpedoes the very foundation of arts criticism... essentially invalidates the primary function of journalism," and "undermines the greatest power of the Web as a record and a clearinghouse for our vast intellectual output."
  • A tall tale. The FBI has admitted to fabricating an Associated Press story and sending its link to the MySpace page of a high-school-bombing-threat suspect in 2007 to lure him into downloading malware that revealed his location and Internet Protocol address. Agents arrested the suspect, a 15-year-old Seattle-area boy, within days of learning his whereabouts as the result of the malware, which downloaded automatically when the suspect clicked the link to a fabricated story bearing the headline "Technology savvy student holds Timberline High School hostage." Civil libertarians are concerned about the FBI's impersonation of news organizations to send malware to suspects, and an AP spokesman said the organization finds it "unacceptable that the FBI misappropriated the name of The Associated Press and published a false story attributed to AP."
  • Suspicious expulsions. An Alabama school district recently expelled more than a dozen students after a review of their social media accounts revealed signs of gang involvement or gun possession. The investigation into the students' social media accounts was conducted by a former FBI agent whom the school district had hired for $157,000 as a security consultant. Since 12 of the 14 expelled students were African-American, a county commissioner accused the investigation of  "effectively targeting or profiling black children in terms of behavior and behavioral issues."

Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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