Comment Re:Also, I have an idea: make murder illegal! (Score 1) 318
Either nobody likes my sense of humor or whoosh. Or both I guess.
I'll just spell it out:
After they pass this law, they should also make it illegal to commit murder. Think of all the lives that will be saved when murders stop happening!
Translation: you can pass a law banning something, but the law can't magically remove that something from the world. Murder is already illegal yet we still have murders. If a law is passed requiring web sites to memory-hole things that under-18 people posted when those people turn 18, that doesn't mean that the memory-holed things will be gone from the Internet.
The Internet is forever. Once something has been posted, it's not possible to undo that.
Also, they should totally add Barbara Streisand to the law.
For those of you who didn't click the link, this was a reference to the "Streisand Effect", where demanding that something be removed from the Internet results in more attention and fame for the removed materials. Nobody really cared about the photo of Streisand's house until she tried to have the photo suppressed; after she tried that, hundreds of thousands of people looked at the photo.
Thus, not only is it impossible to remove things from the Internet, but the attempt is likely to backfire and make things worse.
P.S. Slashdot needs a "-1, Not funny" moderation. I presume that's what the "overrated" meant on my post.