DD upset when she Google searches her name - what can we do?

[IceskaterTwirl]

When my DD was much younger (like 2), she was diagnosed with autism. DH and I, with the very best of intentions, got involved with a local autism charity and did various fundraising events, some of which were reported in the local press/TV. We were seeking to destigmitize autism (how naive) and readily agreed to speak about DD being diagnosed with the disability. We were, sincerely, trying to help other parents come to terms with an autism diagnosis!

Fast forward 15 years and, if DD has autism, no one would know. She was quite possibly misdiagnosed as her diagnosis was when she was under 3 years old. She is now in Y13 and heading for at a top RG to do STEM.

When she Googles her name, autism comes up. She is very upset about this and I totally understand why. She rightly observes that future BFs, employers etc will have preconceptions about her and, as I say, she was probably misdiagnosed.

DH and I feel awful that we have put her in this position. Is there anything we can do to remove old news articles from the internet/social media?

I'm wondering why you were so keen to have a diagnosis? No advice on the internet but I'm sure you can get searches made less prominent.

@converseandjeans we were keen to have a diagnosis coz DD was about to go to nursery and couldn’t speak a single word so she needed support from local authority (for which a statement of SEN was required). She started speaking at age 4 and has never looked back!

How did you manage to get her diagnosed so young?

@Morph22010 becuase she was completely non verbal. We had to use Makaton to communicate

if papers won't oblige, google should remove them from search results as part of the right to be forgotten.

I've never searched for a prospective new employee on Google.

It's not a given.

I have no advice about deleting articles but I think this is really interesting.
Quite a few parents with autistic children blog about life with their children. I know some who share the children’s names and photos too. Sometimes these posts get shared by others.
When it comes to SEN people really need to consider carefully whether it’s right for them to publicly share their child’s diagnosis because once it’s out there on the internet it’s hard to delete.

Right to be forgotten manipulates the internet search engines rather than removing the content itself. The content exists but is unsearchable, which will be fine for 99% of employment checks. MI6 might still find it, I suppose.

That said, this thread is really depressing and borderline ableist, though of course it's your daughter's right to control her own image.

No-one's considering that she might be going to a top RG uni to study STEM because of her autism, are they? Hyper-focus being a thing. Masking also being a thing. People with autism succeeding because early diagnosis means schools and families then put the right supports in place actually also being a thing, though a thing that's rarer than hen's teeth.

Utterly depressing that a young person with autism finds success and everyone's first thought is 'oh fuck, someone might find out she has autism.'

I think it would be worth seeing a family counsellor together. You did what you did with the best of intentions and it can't be undone. For all you know, she may still be autistic (you don't grow out of it) and fantastic at masking/found her tribe/in denial. I am a bit concerned by the "no-one can tell" part.

I was concerned by this too. It does come across as though you have a lot of prejudices in relation to what it means to be autistic and you’re comment adds to the stigma autistic individuals face. What do you mean by you couldn’t tell? Only 1 in 5 have autistic individuals have intellectual disabilities. Autistic individuals are social workers, teachers, senior managers etc. We don’t walk around with a banner on our heads stating our needs are in the minority so in the main we are like everyone else.

My autistic husband works in STEM. Although he’s from a working class background he was a high earner managing a department of 30 by his early 30s. It’s unsurprising that being autistic gave him an advantage as a senior manager working in STEM as most of the people he manages are neurodivergent.

@LaviniasBigBloomers i get where u coming from but the person leading the team who diagnosed her said they do get it wrong when diagnosing at such a young age (under three)

I get why she googled herself but others won't so I doubt they will see if that's what she's bothered about.

@louise5754 People Google each other all the time - potential employers, friends, family. I can completly understand 'what she's bothered about' because they will think she is diagnosed with a condition she doesn't have.

OP, as others have said, look up Right to Be Forgotten and contact Google.

This is one reason why I think people should be wary of names that are too unique. In a world with Google it's better to have a name that comes up with a number of people!

But am glad you have been directed to the right to be forgotten stuff op. It's not perfect but should hopefully do the trick

Thanks @SweetSakura

I'm a journalist for a big media organisation and we sometimes get people contacting us to ask for articles to be removed. In the last few months that's included an article about awoman who went missing a decade ago as a teen (due to mental health issues), and a man who didn't like the way he was portrayed in an article about him as a schoolboy.

The news organisation very rarely takes articles down, or amends them, it would have to be a really exceptional case. Once they're up, they're up. But in the case of the young missing woman, I think an editor was kind enough to remove her surname from the story.

Well said

I can understand the response your adolescent daughter is having - she had no say in being the poster child of a campaign.

However, given that your original goal was to destigmatize the diagnosis it’s a bit sad that it’s now something you’re scrambling to dissociate from because her outcomes were better than you expected. I hope I’m misinterpreting things.

Do you have a very common surname? You can contact the media websites, but I would have thought a very easy option was that if you are Sarah Smith and she's Lucy Hart, because her dad is Hart, that you change her name to Lucy Smith-Hart.

I don't know that I would ever google prospective recruits, but I do look them up on LinkedIn, which is something that you can control very easily. If I can't find a LinkedIn profile, I do google them to see if there is eg a work website profile that tells me a bit about them. So the easy answer is make sure you have a LinkedIn profile for professional purposes.

Also unless someone had a very unusual surname, I wouldn't assume that the Lucy Hart I'd found who was mentioned 15 years ago was the same Lucy Hart who was applying for the job.

For what it's worth when you google me you find someone who was jailed for theft. The only thing about the women who was jailed was that she is older than me and was from a different county so people who have a few facts about me, know it wasn't me. But still.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with autism or any other number of things but it doesn’t mean any of us want that information to be public knowledge.

They do, but not regularly or often enough that it's statistically likely. Otherwise they would simply refuse to look at under 3s for dx, because there would be no point in doing it. There's no benefit to the NHS to have thousands of mis-diagnosed young people running around, is there.

TBH I find it interesting that in what would clearly have been a distressing appointment 14 years ago that's the bit you've remembered. The get out clause.

Actually I don't see it as at all problematic. Half my family have autism, my husband and two of our children. I don't see it as a remotely negative thing. But it's clear that this is going to potentially cause a big rupture between op and her DD and I think that's why people are keen to advise

we have very unusual surname and DD’s first name is distinctive too. If only she were Sarah Jones!

Very much a huge derail but this just reinforces my opinion that that autism spectrum disorder diagnosis is way too large and does no one any favours.

My son is severely disabled by his autism. At ten years old he is unable to do most daily tasks alone and cannot speak and will never live independently whereas others can have hugely successful careers, independent lives etc. I do think it would be useful to ´have totally different diagnoses for these different types of autism.

Utterly depressing that a young person with autism finds success and everyone's first thought is 'oh fuck, someone might find out she has autism.'

Or indeed, ‘this young person has been so successful that they MUST have been misdiagnosed’.

I think ‘right to be forgotten’ will help your DD, OP. Yours is a salutary tale for a lot of parents.

Why is your DD so upset that future employers etc would see her associated with autism? Even if she doesn't have it. It seems strange that you did so much when she was younger to try to remove the stigma from autism for both of you and her to see it as a stigma. And to state that she clearly doesn't have it because she's going to a RG Uni to study STEM.