Irish Examiner view: A real-life ‘Mission’ quite plausible

An ECHR judgment on the 'right to be forgotten' and recent anti-library protests in Ireland are both part of a dangerous campaign against freedom of expression

Typewriter enthusiasts savour the joys of pre-digital communication technology, but there is a darker purpose in the use of the machines in the latest Mission Impossible movie. Picture: iStock

A scene in the new Mission Impossible movie shows an office the size of a hangar with thousands of people bashing away on ancient typewriters. What are they doing? For those of us nostalgic about old-school Olivetti Lettera 32s or the Royal range, or the stylish lines of a vintage Olympia Deluxe, there’s much to enjoy, but there’s a darker purpose if Tom Cruise is to accept the challenge of the message that will self-destruct in five seconds.

The arch villain of the film is an artificial intelligence known as ‘The Entity’. And it is doing dastardly things by entering computer networks and rewriting the past. 

Only going back to analogue can save us. The world’s knowledge and secrets must be de-digitised, put back on paper, and disconnected. 

It’s a good joke at the expense of the vast numbers of global technocrats, and would be even funnier if it weren’t true that attempts are made, every day, to amend digital records of what was once published in order to produce an alternative, or whitewashed, or bowdlerised history.

The latest depressing interference emanates, as have others, from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which has extended the ‘right to be forgotten’ from search engines to news websites.

The case, involving Belgian newspaper Le Soir, centred on a driver, a doctor, who wanted to be anonymised in reports of a deadly car crash for which he was responsible. The article was written in 1994, but went online in 2008, when Le Soir created an online version of its archives. 

Editors argued that forcing news websites to remove historic material, an “essential component of modern-day news gathering and reporting”, would not be a “proportionate restriction on freedom of expression”.

The ECHR disagreed by 12 judges to five. They said the article “had no topical, historical, or scientific interest”, that the man involved was “not well known”, and that he had been caused “serious harm” by the “virtual criminal record” created by its continued availability online, especially due to the length of time that had lapsed since the original publication.

This is another dangerous development in the campaign against freedom of expression. Not that the terrain for this battle exists only in the digital dimension: Those vigilantes who disrupted a children’s reading at Tralee Library on Thursday, protesting over an event to mark Pride Week, also hijacked and impeded communication. Other intimidatory protests closed Cork City’s main library earlier this year.

Intolerant pressure groups must be told to leave our books alone. Lawyers must understand that the public record of published information is there for citizens to consider for the future, and not to become the lucrative subject for territorial arguments and reputational management.

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Online pet theories require consideration

The Huw Edwards case, and to a lesser extent, the row over Ryan Tubridy’s remuneration, give cause to wonder how Arthur Miller’s classic allegorical play, The Crucible, his reimagining of the Salem Witch Trials, might have been presented in the age of social media.

 All that “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” could have been circulated so much more widely if Abigail Williams had a Twitter account. 

And everyone could instantly pile on with finger-wagging, shunning, scarlet letters, the full paraphernalia of moral outrage.

The complexities of the Huw Edwards investigation — several separate accusations, the major of which is denied by the alleged victim; a refusal by the Metropolitan Police and the South Wales Police to take any further action; a 61-year-old man bedridden with stress and depression — mean that a clear picture of what, if anything, has happened will be slow to emerge. 

But it is difficult to see either the BBC or The Sun enhancing their reputations.

It was 12 years ago this week that The Sun’s sister newspaper, the News of the World, was closed because of its involvement in phone hacking. It has now gambled that the version of events given to it by the parents of one of the people involved is true and can be proved to be so. If that is the case, then the BBC will be accused of foot-dragging and cover up.

In any event it has been a poisonous dance played to the tune of all those internet sleuths who enjoy such dramas. To the vanishing of Elisa Lam at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, to the West Cork Sophie Toscan du Plantier mystery, to Wagatha Christie, we can now add a feverish few days when everyone had a pet theory as to who the mystery presenter was. And, as usual, were “happy to share”.

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Setting good examples

Next week will mark the start of an eagerly awaited tournament which should give a boost to women’s soccer with the World Cup contested by 32 teams in Australia and New Zealand. Audiences are likely to create a new record and will add to the burgeoning popularity of the Women’s Super League and the Champions League. Ireland is making its debut.

As in any modern sport, there are disturbing back stories and it is not only the men’s game — informed this week by Dele Alli’s revelations about being a victim of sexual abuse, recruitment as a child drug runner, addiction to sleeping pills — that reminds us of darkness beyond the goal-line.

Ireland’s coach Vera Pauw has recounted allegations that she was raped as a young woman by a Dutch coach and sexually assaulted by two more. Then in December, she was accused of “body-shaming” players in her season in charge of Houston Dash, accusations she is legally challenging. 

The Republic’s rising star, Sinead Farrelly, has returned to the sport after an eight-year absence, during which she was central to the US National Women’s Soccer League investigation into misconduct by coaches.

All these cases are examples of sports people, often held up as role models, taking responsibility for their own stories. And that can only be a healthy and proper example.