Well, yes and no. Off the top of my head, I can think of three examples of cases like you describe in which I would make three different answers to that question.
The most obvious case, and the one in which I'd fully agree with you, is the Frenditto drama. Like any other case when private material is made public without permission, the correct action is clearly to take the material down. The material was not supposed to be published, so it is not supposed to be published.
The second case lies in a much greyer area, and that is the Laura K. Krishna saga (http://www.aweekofkindness.com/blog/archives/articles/the_laura_k_krishna_saga/). This was one which spawned a great deal of controversy – beside various judgments of the morality of the actions described, many people said that the article should not have been published at all. I think that the writers acted correctly when they changed the names on the page but left the story up, but even that was controversial – in both directions.
The final case, in which I would have been least likely to approve of deleting the essay, was that of Eric Burns's rant about censorship of a newsbox (http://www.websnark.com/archives/2005/03/acknowledgement_1.html) from awhile back. This was, in fact, the essay to which I was alluding when I said I admired Burns's stance on retracting essays. That rant was solid, and despite being wrong on the facts, there's material there, points made there, that deserves fair consideration.
So, yes and no. In those cases, the abject apology is definitely warranted. But deletion? Not always.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: a virtual experience
The most obvious case, and the one in which I'd fully agree with you, is the Frenditto drama. Like any other case when private material is made public without permission, the correct action is clearly to take the material down. The material was not supposed to be published, so it is not supposed to be published.
The second case lies in a much greyer area, and that is the Laura K. Krishna saga (http://www.aweekofkindness.com/blog/archives/articles/the_laura_k_krishna_saga/). This was one which spawned a great deal of controversy – beside various judgments of the morality of the actions described, many people said that the article should not have been published at all. I think that the writers acted correctly when they changed the names on the page but left the story up, but even that was controversial – in both directions.
The final case, in which I would have been least likely to approve of deleting the essay, was that of Eric Burns's rant about censorship of a newsbox (http://www.websnark.com/archives/2005/03/acknowledgement_1.html) from awhile back. This was, in fact, the essay to which I was alluding when I said I admired Burns's stance on retracting essays. That rant was solid, and despite being wrong on the facts, there's material there, points made there, that deserves fair consideration.
So, yes and no. In those cases, the abject apology is definitely warranted. But deletion? Not always.