Post by hibernicus on Oct 25, 2014 18:29:23 GMT
On 10 February, 15 February and 13 March 2014 respectively, three offensive messages relating to Anthony Murphy, editor of the Catholic Voice newspaper, and to his wife Kim, were posted by an anonymous and unregistered user in the shoutbox of the Irish Catholics’ Forum. As moderator, I regret that I was not aware of the existence of the shoutbox so I did not delete these offensive postings and ban the person responsible as soon as the first message was put up.
After becoming aware of the existence of these posts, I banned the user responsible and deleted the posts. I did not retain any copies of these posts as I thought I had deleted them comprehensively and permanently.
However, I did not realise until Anthony Murphy informed me at the end of August 2014 that Google’s search engine had meanwhile recorded these posts and retained snippets of them in the cache for various threads on the forum. I regret that such material should have remained on the Web.
Since becoming aware of this, and especially since I received copies of the remnant text of these offensive posts on 29 September 2014 from a person to whom Anthony Murphy had forwarded them, I have carried out numerous Google searches to find this “snippet and cache” material. Since 13 October 2013, when I was informed of the procedure for getting rid of such material and when I searched with the full remnant text, I have located fragments of this material on several threads. Wherever I have located it, I have contacted Google and requested its removal. I undertake to continue to seek to remove any such material which comes to my attention in future. Anyone who reads this and who becomes aware of such material is asked to let me know of its location so that I can remove it.
I have also tried to the best of my ability to help Anthony Murphy to locate and identify the author of these offensive messages (whose computer, to judge from its IP address, was based in Warrington, England). Anyone who can help with this should contact me.
I regret the distress caused by this matter to Anthony and Kim Murphy.
After becoming aware of the existence of these posts, I banned the user responsible and deleted the posts. I did not retain any copies of these posts as I thought I had deleted them comprehensively and permanently.
However, I did not realise until Anthony Murphy informed me at the end of August 2014 that Google’s search engine had meanwhile recorded these posts and retained snippets of them in the cache for various threads on the forum. I regret that such material should have remained on the Web.
Since becoming aware of this, and especially since I received copies of the remnant text of these offensive posts on 29 September 2014 from a person to whom Anthony Murphy had forwarded them, I have carried out numerous Google searches to find this “snippet and cache” material. Since 13 October 2013, when I was informed of the procedure for getting rid of such material and when I searched with the full remnant text, I have located fragments of this material on several threads. Wherever I have located it, I have contacted Google and requested its removal. I undertake to continue to seek to remove any such material which comes to my attention in future. Anyone who reads this and who becomes aware of such material is asked to let me know of its location so that I can remove it.
I have also tried to the best of my ability to help Anthony Murphy to locate and identify the author of these offensive messages (whose computer, to judge from its IP address, was based in Warrington, England). Anyone who can help with this should contact me.
I regret the distress caused by this matter to Anthony and Kim Murphy.