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Four Google Officials Facing Charges In Italy For Errant Video
mikesd81 writes to tell us that four Google employees may be facing charges of defamation and failure to control personal data simply because they didn't remove a video of a boy with Down's Syndrome being harassed and eventually hit over the head with a box of tissue, from Google Video. The video was posted in September of 2006 and was removed by Google within a day of receiving the initial complaints, but apparently that isn't fast enough. "Google maintains charges against the employees are unwarranted, Pancini said. Europe's E-commerce Directive exempts service providers from prescreening content before it is publicly posted, he said. Also, the video was technically uploaded to a Google server in the US, not in Italy, Pancini said. 'It was a terrible video,' Pancini said, adding that Google is concerned about the case's impact on censorship on the Internet. The defendants include David C. Drummond, a Google senior vice president, corporate development and chief legal officer. Pancini said Drummond did paperwork to create Google Italy, but has never lived in the country."
Seems that the internet having no boarders is being used by courts to extend their reach (e.g. Kentucky). This certainly does look like a good road to be traveling down.
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How on earth are they suing individuals? Google is a corporation and must be treated as such under the law.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
If this proceeds, Google should simply shut down its operations in Italy and move to a neighboring country where its employees won't be targeted by tyrants.
I'm assuming Italy doesn't want that reputation.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
For anyone who has managed a web forum (or yahoo group or whatever) and been sued for defamation/libel over material posted by a 3rd party - Is Section 230 of the Federal Communications Decency Act the relevant US law to be used in one's defense?
It seems to be appropriate, but does anyone have personal experience?
Predictably, it doesn't state anywhere that Italian prosecutors are going after the boys who harassed and attacked a handicapped child.
I agree with you, and think that certain regulation should be implemented that mimics certain countries laws. That would be the person who shot the video, no the person who is hosting the server that let someone post the video. I am not sure(as I never read the articles) but if the person is guilty of not screening, then I don't think there should be punishment, but if there is a way to track the person who filmed the video and posted it...they are the ones who should get charged.
Or for assaulting a kid with Down syndrome...
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Mod parent up. Why all of the misguided outrage for a delay in removing an offensive video? The priority here is obviously to go after the deep pockets rather than any concern for the kids involved. Just think of the children!
Why sue Youtube?
There are the harassers and the video posters who are more directly linked with any harm.
Oh, right. The money.
Censorship, separation of powers, I would suggest that this video issue touches on those and others and we need Net Neutrality to prevent the bigotry of others from impacting any of us.
The impact on censorship is huge. No provider should ever be held liable for anyone's content. The fact that they are going after the company, in this case Google, and not the individuals that posted the content is bad enough in my opinion. If I were on a jury (of course in another country would you even have that option) I would want it thrown out based on censorship alone. You want to censor, go ahead and censor yourself if you want, but do NOT dare to decide for me or anyone else.
Bringing down the offending video should have been sufficient, but in this case appears not to have been. It should have been.
A good reason not to allow any court in any other country, NOT to have an impact in the country in which you live. We need to be held accountable to our laws alone, and many are bad enough without putting another countries garbage before our own.
Should this case or any case like it impact anyones freedom in the USA (or any other country); we all have additional problems. This must not be allowed to happen in the United States. (And no amount of fear should be acceptable to reduce an individuals rights as has been done here in the US by our own government in the last few years...sad but true for us.)
Another good reason for the separation of powers for any government. Two that come quickly to mind are legislative vs judicial and church vs state.
For legislative vs judicial, it seems simple enough, one group legislates, makes laws the other group bases their decisions on those laws. As I read this, this seems too simple a definition, perhaps someone with more legal expertise than I can add to this and make it better. Specifically, I do not have a problem as many do with the Supreme Court legislating from the Bench, is this not one thing they MUST do? Another thought, if you do not bring a decision up for them to decide than they cannot legislate from the bench can they? As I mention later this falls into the category of watching what you wish for as you just might get it. (Of course you can legislate morality, but SHOULD you? I would suggest that a wise person would NOT ever!)
For church vs state, it seems simple enough. If any of us want freedom of religion to worship and believe that this is a right given to us by our creator, than why allow any law to be made that will allow another group, no matter how well meaning, discriminate against our ability to worship (or not) as we see fit.
Yet many in this country, the good old USA, must really want to live under a theocracy as they consistently attempt to legislate religious activities, behavior, etc, you name it. Or perhaps many misguided Americans want to live under Despotism, our founding fathers understood what that meant as well. This is extremely short sighted and
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I'm wondering why they would take the video down? Is not having the video going to improve the life of this child? Does it make us pretend that someone is not getting abused?
Sometimes we need to see the truth of things. Why isn't all of the NAZI propaganda, translated Hitler, Goebels and other speeches on YouTube, along with captured footage of all the outrages committed by them. Let's get all of our ugliness up there, and if there is any editing, let the editing be to yank out the gore so that the lesson of our brutality is not a mere snuff fest to watch with some buddies over a case of beer.
You could make a pretty compelling case that the Bush administration's efforts to censor terrorist web sites and traffic from the American people probably undermined his war effort far more than any left wing protest -ever- did.
If you dig around a bit, you find not only their web sites but their people too, and they aren't hiding their intentions or hatreds at all. A few minutes talking to them would quickly break oneself of the illusion that these are guys in the mold of the disenfranched western person that the nonviolent in America would want to believe these people are.
You never see a terrorist video describing their grievances, in the fashion, for example, the way American blacks and civil rights leaders might just take a camera to black guys getting firehosed by the police. Nope, these gladly post videos triumphing the killing of American soldiers, cheering the destruction of civilians. I guarantee you I've never seen Martin Luther King laughing that one of his people dressed up their retarded kid with explosives and sent him to bumbling towards a flea market.
Quite honestly, at a time when I had serious doubts about the war, some AQ fanboy posting videos cheering IEDs of American troops certainly hardened my opinion in -favor- of it. But oh no, Bush tries to censor -all- of it, giving us a substitute of "these people are really evil", and that's just lame. He could have stood up and said, "hey, if you don't believe me, when I say that we have to fight these people, just go ask them...seriously... just go talk to al qaeda yourself, and see, at http://www.someterroristwebsite.com/"
As much as the right wing makes fun of the left for pretending that there is no evil, the right did itself no favors by trying to hide it.
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