zlacker

It's not like it helps, if she did have a presence online the malicious stuff will still totally wipe it out.

Take me, for an example. Google Greg Maxwell. You'll get a smear piece written by the associates of the fraudster that claims to invented bitcoin title "Crypto Crime Cartel: Greg Maxwell" several pages ahead of my own webpage (https://nt4tn.net/) which shows up only on the sixth page where essentially no one will see it. (hey, at least the smear piece not #1 anymore-- It was for a long time.)

(You could add 'bitcoin' to the search to get rid of most of the people who aren't me-- the "crime cartel" article is result #2 then, and my page is at the bottom of page 4-- again where few people are ever likely to see it-- after several other smear pages.)

So I think the threat of negative material is mostly orthogonal. You're probably better off invisible, you're screwed either way if someone well funded wants to trash your name.

>>nullc+(OP)
You’re totally right - nothing can really stop a well enough funded smear campaign. In this example, I don’t think Project Veritas was going after her specifically. But it’s literally the only search result for her somewhat-unique name (and certainly the top result when combined with her profession), so it’s the only thing that future employers would see. If there’s even only a single other information source, there’s at least _something_ to compare against when a busy recruiter is doing a quick screening search. Of course these examples are rare, but they do happen.

>>picome+Y3
Okay, I agree that it's not entirely without merit, but realistically joe-blows personal page is really not likely to be on the first page of results without a pretty targeted query. So you've got to weigh the probability that the recruiter even finds the personal page, that is even has any effect relative to the negative thing, vs the potential harm of being out there.

I don't think the cost/benefit is likely to pan out. Of course, on the same basis, blocking yourself out of google results is also mostly irrelevant for the purpose of standing up against DRMing the web.