Down the Memory Hole: Notes on the Folly of Concealment

Earlier this year, some Duke University lacrosse players were accused of rape. The university cancelled the team's season and removed the team roster from the athletics website. Since then, the 2005-06 roster was reinstated, but without the names of accused team members David Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann.

The Johnsville News blog discusses the removal of the site and has an image of the roster taken in March 2006. In a September 16 post, JN points out that:

Once information is on the internet it's almost impossible to take it back. The Duke lacrosse team information was already in the web caches of some internet search engines, ready to be retrieved and put back on the internet. Which is what immediately happened. So what did Duke accomplish by taking down the lacrosse team information? That action just made it appear that the entire team was possibly guilty of doing something bad. It added to the perception of guilt that was building in Durham, stoked by the local news organs and the public security apparatus.Those pictures from the Duke website were the same ones used for that infamous "wanted poster" that started circulating all over Duke and Durham. Crimestoppers had the web info and pictures. The police investigators also had the website information and were using it to put together their initial photo lineups for the alleged victim.
...
Getting even more specific, should Duke have just removed some of the player's individual information that was listed: height, weight, and photos? If they did, does that not also taint the team and imply concealment? Again, that information is already available and part of the public domain. If Duke keeps the information online they can at least utilize it to draw interested internet user's attention to their official position regarding the matter.Should Duke have left all the lacrosse team web pages and information online and simply amended them with some official statement regarding the presumption of the "team's" innocence? Legal and public relations experts are probably better prepared to discuss all of this and crisis management strategies involving the internet. One interesting side question regarding the team is whether the Duke men's lacrosse roster for 2006-07, if it is posted [The 2006-07 roster is now posted; however, without links to individual photos. In fact, the reposted 2005-06 roster has no links to individual photos, either--P.Z.], should symbolically include the names of Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty? Seligmann and Finnerty, who would have been juniors on the 2006-7 team, are techically on a leave of absence from the university. ...

(All emphases mine--P.Z.)

Though the Johnsville News blog doesn't address the alteration of the reposted 2005-06 roster, Duke's reposting of the 2005-06 roster without the names of Evans, Finnerty, and Seligmann is historical revisionism (albeit, on a small scale) and implies that Duke considers their names tainted, regardless of the outcome of their upcoming trial.