Slashdot Mirror
Google Italy Execs Convicted Over YouTube Bullying Video
FTWinston writes "Three Italian Google executives have been convicted of privacy violations in Italy over the contents of a YouTube video showing a boy with Downs syndrome being bullied — despite the fact that the video was removed as soon as it was brought to their attention, and that Google assisted the authorities in locating those who posted it. Prosecutors argued that Google should have sought the consent of all parties involved with the video before allowing it to go online. Quite how they were meant to achieve this is another matter."
Google has responded by saying this is a Serious threat to the web.
And now we have even more judges whose lives aren't worth the resources they consume.
So Italy has basically painted a great big target on every single operator of social media.
Apparently if an Italian moderator or admin ticks me off I can simply upload some offending bit of data and call the cops...
Thats a fucking witch hunt, what the heck else could google have done??
This seems to be a mistake by the particular court that tried the case. Don't the Italians have an appeals process? It's just silly.
Pl0x, give me a decent job outside italy, i'm wishing to leave this stupid and pathetic country everyday MOAR!
So by extension this means that if someone pushes a kilo of cocaine through my letterbox and I report it to the police, I'm guilty of possession of a controlled substance?
The judge is a fucking retard.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
This is ridiculous.
If Youtube is illegal in Italy, maybe Google should just start blocking people from Italy from accessing the site. Maybe then people will care, when the people's bread and circuses are threatened.
Nevertheless, a judge in Milan today convicted 3 of the 4 defendants — David Drummond, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes — for failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. All 4 were found not guilty of criminal defamation.
Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/serious-threat-to-web-in-italy.html
I thought that they were convicted, and that was the problem. Am I missing what the actual conviction was, or is it a typo/freudian wishfull thinking?
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
We are beginning to see a confrontation between American long held beliefs in free speech and what other nations consider to be free speech.
We are seeing this happen with internet censorship in Australia, Europe, and Asia.
It is quite possible that in the near future the internet will look very different on a per country basis.
Automatically notify the Italian government of every single public video uploaded to Youtube, and offer them a 5 minute delay before it becomes viewable inside Italy in which time they can reject it.
They'll be begging for it to stop after half an hour.
This is honestly the first time in my life that I am ashamed of my heritage. This is absolutely ridiculous and reeks of corruption and incompetence. I seriously hope that --for all of our sakes-- this gets overturned in the appeal. But seriously, when did "having evidence of a crime" make you guilty of a crime (So long as you didn't try to tamper or hide it)? Did I miss the memo?
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
From the article it says that Google was convicted of violating privacy law for not getting permission to post the video. The nature of the video is irrelevant. I don't know Italian privacy law, but if they do have requirements that you must get permission to post video recordings of people on the internet, then this is Google's problem for not bothering to care about the local laws.
Just wow.
This is so far over the top...based on the couple of different sources I have seen this story so far, Google immediately complied when asked to take the video down, assisted the authorities in finding the culprits, and fully cooperated....and the EXECUTIVES, who amount to pencil pushers with decision making powers, get convicted? Seriously, what the hell...that makes no sense.
They must have used the Chewbacca defense against them or something...
Living With a Nerd
The UK's former Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said the case gave privacy laws a "bad name".
To which I entirely agree. Privacy laws have been used here in the UK (e.g., when the News Of The World posted a video showing Max Mosley in private acts), but the point is that firstly these are civil cases not criminal ones, and secondly, it requires intent, and does not make someone liable for merely "allowing" it, or running a server where users post content.
Even for something that clearly is and should be illegal, this ruling would be worrying - it's making server owners personally and criminally liable, rather than seeing them as common carriers.
But as mad as this is, in some sense this should be no different to say, if China decided to convict a Google exec for linking to pro-democracy pages, for example. Stupid, yes, but Google can and should ignore it. Those convicted do not live in Italy, so I don't see how they would have to comply if they don't visit (of course if they get extradited, then that will be mad). Google doesn't even have to pull out of Italy - they can surely just carry on, and it's up to Italy to try to block them.
The worrying thing though is that this is not some far off country, but a member of the EU.
"reeks of corruption and incompetence" This is, after all, Italy: the country that elected and then re-elected Berlusconi.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
like how they did in the case of Abu Ghraib photos - http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/07/1442217
Prosecutors argued that Google should have sought the consent of all parties involved with the video before allowing it to go online.
And should I get permission from the cop that I catch tasering someone for no reason before I post that video as well? That statement is ripe for abuse.
The video was NOT removed as soon as it was brought to Google's attention.
According to the prosecutors the video remained online for two months even though web users had already asked for it to be taken down.
It is also worth mentioning that Google execs will not serve jail time because in Italy sentences of less than three years are commuted for people without criminal records.
Did you see the Amanda Knox trial? This is the same legal system that convicted 2 obviously innocent people of murder with no evidence and sentenced them to prison for over 20 years even though they had already CONVICTED SOMEONE ELSE FOR THE SAME CRIME!
... "flaws."
My wife and I had planned on visiting Italy in the next few years. After watching the trial, we changed our minds. Italy's legal system has
I consider that Youtube content is 50% junk anyway...
Known clips such as music videoclips have same version uploaded by 30 users http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=metallica+one&search_type=&aq=f
or useless junk like nerds showing their rooms.
[[ Interesting commentary waiting on permission from CmdrTaco, FTWinston, and the Italian Government ]]
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Seriously. What's the percentage of Italy's advertisement revenue from Youtube? Significant enough to question whether to maintain business in a country obviouly hostile to your service and willing to convict your employees that are helpful to the government in prosecuting the crime recorded on video?
If Google was seriously considering leaving the Chinese market (or using the threat to re-evaluate Chinese practices regarding them) then TPTB should consider an Interdict against Italy.
Youtube has already shown an ability to restrict content based on political boundaries, so this shouldn't be so much of a problem to implement. Maybe even put a nag screen (as they do to users of IE6) letting the Italian users know that this practice by their elected officials will not be tolerated.
If Youtube wants to be legitamate, Google needs to institute a moderation system.
All of this legal trouble with having illegal activities and copyrighted material being posted to Youtube would be much less of a problem if Google simply decided to take responsibility for Youtube and implement a moderation system.
Kriston
Makes me wonder if one of the four expelled students has a Daddy that's a prosecutor or in some other position of power. I just can't fathom another reason for prosecuting them...Just reeks of retaliation.
In Italy defamation is a beloved way to make people shut up. In two occasions I was threatened to be sued over defamation.
For the record, both times a car driver behaved like an arse and I told them they were 1) "un coglione" which is best translated as knobhead/dickhead/idiot and 2) "stronza" (bitch.) Both times the defamation threat came instantaneously. Knowing it would cost me US$ 100 tops, I actually enjoyed the frigging beggars -their motives were mostly financial IMHO- winding themselves up.
I suppose I actually deserved a bit of verbal thrashing and intimidation in those cases. But imagine much worthier goals being seriously hampered by this. You very quickly defame someone in Italy on the base that they actually deserve it.
We Italians sort of cherish elaborated, concocted, ridiculous laws. It makes us feel "save" in a way that if push comes to shove we will find some way to delay or attack the adversary.
Yes, I'm Italian and quite ambivalent about it. Don't think, however, that I would trade in my nationality that lightly. It's certainly not the best nationality to have but I haven't came across a better one so far. I trust most feel the same about their own nationality.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Google's geolocation is pretty good. They should just redirect all youtube and google video hits from Italy to a page saying "Following the recent judicial decision this service is no longer available in Italy as it is not practical to moderate all content in advance. If you don't like this here is the Italian justice minister's email address ........@........."
The real probleme is not that the video appeared on youtube, the problem is that someone was stupid enough to beat another human being, be it down syndrom or not. The syndrom has nothing to do with it.. and in my opinion its good that the video appeared on youtube for two reason. 1. If it sickens enough people they will realise that the problem is not the video its the act. That the only solution is not censorship its education. 2. If enough people criticize the one putting the video up well they might just realise how stupid they were and change. Again... hiding things dont help.. showing it and saying.. damn this is stupid, do you realise what you have done? Put yourself in the shoe of that person !! THAT is something that SHOULD be done. Not hidding it... thats just hiding from your monster.. not confronting it.
If is a valid precedent, then in any moment slashdot admins could be convicted in Italy for an AC comment. Or any of us, if we didnt promoted down that comment when had moderating points.
If someone commits a crime in Italy and the police isn't around to intervene, the victim should be able to sue them for not preventing the crime. How they were meant to achieve that? That's their problem, not mine.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
My wife and I had planned on visiting Italy in the next few years. After watching the trial, we changed our minds. Italy's legal system has ... "flaws."
You misunderstand. Those "flaws" are in fact "features" designed by the government, to support that government (or the media companies associated with it) whenever it needs them.
The president Silvio Berlusconi and his family own 45% of all media in the country (http://ketupa.net/berlusconi.htm). He regularly uses his political position to personally enrich himself and his family.
Google came into the country and threatened his source of income by offering a media platform not controlled by the Berlusconi's. This has nothing to do with the autistic boy in the video, but everything to do with the retarded president.
Man, I love Italy. Easily my favorite European country to visit, but idiotic things like this make me never want to visit again.
IMO, any prosecutors involved in even attempting to bring such a case to court should have been immediately removed from their position. The fact that the judge allowed the case AND ruled in favor, he should have been immediately removed from his position and barred from any and all legal and / or political practices within Italy.
Having elected a tanned, walking erection as prime minister isn't enough? Now this? It's a wonder why Italy hasn't already sunk into the Mediterranean Sea under the weight of its own shame.
Reading the first couple of sentences of the summary "finally, common sense! Executives have been convicted over violating the poster's privacy by leading police to him!"
one RTFS and RTFA later, and... for fuck's sake.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Just felt the obligatory moment of patriotism over living in a country with a relatively non-retarded legal system. Let's face it. The rest of the world sucks. Or at least they never took the time to read and understand what de Tocqueville meant about the uniqueness of America's judicial system.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Well, it is Italy. Perhaps the victim will sue for having had his only chance at five minutes of fame nixed by Google. The mob-perpetrators will sue the state and the media for slander because they were just doing their job. Everyone will get killed. Then, there will be a marriage, a party, everyone will go to the beach, and confessions will be heard on a rock by a Catholic priest, you will be absolved if you are in scuba gear or have killed enough people.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Good effort to be reasonable, but this is almost judicial panic. I expect junk from prosecutors, but not judges.
This is the same as requiring them to cross reference every single version of every single web document ever made with every single person who happens to "be in it", and that's not even getting into the people who were photoshopped in it!
It's just so wrong it's despair worthy.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Once again I am sure that I am not the only one who misread this: "Google Italy Executes Convicted Over YouTube Bullying Videos"
The Italian legal system is a FARCE. The more I hear about how it operates the more I dislike it. How can the Italian people accept it? They found Amanda Knox guilty after they already confirmed who the real perpetrator was.
Shame on Italy. Not that I'm in love with Google, but you guys are fucking stupid with your legal system.
I'm a 2000 man.
Please mod parent up.
While we can all agree that it's impractical for Google to review every single video, this is not a reason to dismiss the discussion of whether or not it's acceptable for privacy to go down the drain simply because we're happily amused by all non-objectional use of their service.
This is political.
I would wager that this is Berlusconi's way of trying to control the web, you have to keep in mind this is a man who has a stranglehold on Italian media, and has used that to get into, and stay in power over the years. The web has been a headache for him, because it's an avenue from which people are getting news and which he does not control.
The judges may well be incompetent, or corrupt, but really they're just pawns in a bigger battle.
It's really hard to see how it can be anything else, I do not believe judges would reach the conclusion they did based on the fact that Google had done everything possible in their power, and based on the fact the people at Google in question who were targetted, are in some cases completely irrelevant and unattached to anything to do with the case.
It's likely that these people were chosen because they were high enough to make a point, but not the top dogs who really would have been able to unleash hell and fight back.
This is certainly one way in which Berlusconi could try and control the web such that it adheres to his viewpoint as much of the Italian media that he controls does, by ensuring that content providers are criminally responsible for anything put up that the government disagrees with. It's not a big deal for the Google execs, because they will likely never travel to Italy and so the case wont effect them- but picture this, you run a site in Italy critical of the Italian PM, you post photos of him carrying out an illegal deal, and, well, now you know where it will land you at least- jail. Anyone not from Italy doing the same, faces jail if they ever decide to travel to Italy after being convicted of the same.
It's almost as if Berlusconi has been taking lessons from the likes of Chavez and Ahmadinejad recently.
You mean, apart from playing the ugliest soccer ever for a World Cup champion.
BTW, I'm of italian descent too.
... That Berlusconi, beside being the president of that country, is too the manager of almost every TV stations in Italy (Mediaset).
I live in Switzerland, and I cannot find it again, but I read some weeks ago that a law was to be enforced to regulate the viewing of on demand video.
The article was relating the big amount of money that where being put into a on-demand video platform for mediaset at the same time, and how youtube was the first competitor to put aside.
http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=450891
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Berlusconi-s-Government-Plans-to-Severely-Restrict-Online-Video-in-Italy-132350.shtml
Given the fact that Berlusconi says all the time that "The bad journalists are attacking me without reasons all the time" http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/10/15/f-berlusconi-saga.html, and how he consider that the fist in face he received some times ago was "organized and planed via facebook" http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=alDDK9lGqxtY I am not that surprised of that move.
After all, he passed a law giving him immunity in every lawsuit for corruption that where opened against him when he came back to the government.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/18/silvio-berlusconi-immunity-prosecution
"Youtube.com is inaccessible from your country."
Error 1942 - Fascist exception overflow. Please disable Axis powers and reload the page.
When I first read the summary, I thought that the 3 google executives were the ones who DID THE BULLYING. The Title certainly doesn't make it clear either.
There were certainly large holes in the prosecution's argument, and their random character assassination tactics were pretty underhanded, but the evidence that she was at least present at the murder is rather strong. (Click 'more' to read it all.)
If the laws of a specific country allow such abuse of service providers, the best fix is to simply pull youtube access from the entire country. Let the people of that nation demand the judgment to be repealed if they value the service.
Is this the same Italy that let a a fugitive child rapist attend an awards ceremony in their country without the slightest fear of arrest? So I guess it's okay to rape a kid as long as you don't bully them on Youtube? What noble defenders of our kids, that Italian government!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I reached the same conclusion as you did, but what does this mean for media in general? Should they be blanking out the faces of every person in the background or asking everyone in the audience of a sports crowd whether it is okay to air the football match, for fear of showing this person on TV?
While I can appreciate privacy laws, there are some realistic bounds.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
RTFAs, the bullying victim is autistic.
Also this. Prosecution issues aside, she was involved. The evidence is overwhelming.
4 chan, where are you - we need this needs to go to over power level 9000!
That by definition you are using this content to turn a financial profit. People need to stop thinking of YouTube / Google as some helpless 3rd Party that is not responsible for the content it disseminates. A television network would not be allowed to air a video like this without clearing all the rights to it, unless they were using it as part of a news piece, and even then they might have to blur some of the faces etc. Google and Youtube are essentially for profit entities which sell ad space next to, before, or on top of content provided by another entity. All internet content distributors have a legal duty to make sure they have the rights to the content they distribute, before doing so. Yes this is inefficient and would curtail the growth of such sites, but their explosive growth is only because they are not responsible for their true cost of doing business, and have been getting a free ride for far too long through a loophole exemption in the DMCA. I should not have to patrol the internet to make sure my copyrights are not being violated; I should be able to go to sleep at night knowing that my content is safe wherever it is being distributed, because that distributor has taken the necessary precautions to clear all rights and compensate performers, artists, and creators appropriately; even if that performer is an autistic child.
Who needs Italy . . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Silvio Berlusconi isn't the president. Never has been. He's the Prime Minister.
Wow, that song just popped in my head while reading this.
And this is the country put in charge of rebuilding Afghanistan's Court System.
Wait...that just might work!
I'm pretty sure I know why this happened:Youtube is a serious threat to Berlusconi's stranglehold over all Italian TV stations.Considering how easy it is to set up a Youtube channel, traditional Italian TV is about to be pushed into irrelevance. Call Berlusconi whatever you want, but he isn't stupid. So he sends some favorable prosecutor after Youtube and will try to shut them down.
I don't know if this will lead to anything more than Youtube being pulled from Italy, because the Italian system isn't common law - judges don't create precedents. So I don't think this ruling means anything more than more "Youtube, stop interfering with our monopoly!" But other than that, yes it does reek of corruption and incompetence.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
And if you still decide to travel there, be sure that your wife wears something else than jeans.
I know of a privately run school in Singapore which has been trying very hard for many months apparently to shut down a parents' blog carrying rather negative comments. (I am not naming anyone except jurisdiction, I better protect my own cowardly/anonymous arse).
A defamation suit is plodding along but the content may be too weak for take down. Trade Mark threats has been tried with no success. Surveillance, extra legal methods, nothing works apparently!
If a little trip to Italy will help them, they might explore.
(BTW, it was India Police and Google which helped the school find the parents in Singapore. What irony now!)
Obviously innocent? You must have watched a different trial. She and her boyfriend had wildly differing stories about what happened, repeatedly changed their stories and had some other issues explaining what they were doing the night of the murder. Not to mention that it is entirely possible for more than one person to participate in a murder.
Yes, there were some obvious issues in the trial (her dna is found on a knife from their apartment? Shocking!) and there are plenty of well-deserved jokes about the Italian legal system, but to go as far as saying they're obviously innocent.... that's a stretch.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
This is very typical of Italian "justice". You must understand that in Italy they feel sorry for the worst criminals and like to convict lesser ones. People over 35 might remember the Achille Lauro hijacking where an elderly Jewish American cruise ship passenger was killed by terrorists. The terrorists were going to get away on an Egyptian Airliner until President Reagan ordered US fighters to intercept the flight and force it to land in Italy. The Italians showed up with their elite armed police and at gunpoint demanded the right to try the hijackers. And in justice the Italian way, they ended up feeling sorry for all of them and made all of the ones they convicted eventually eligible for work release. And of course, one of them took advantage of this and fled and it was only due to the competence of Spanish authorities that he was recaptured.
You must be aware too that Italy probably has the strongest voice in all of the EU against the death penalty. So like many countries that don't have it, they tend to be pretty soft on true criminal behavior. They are not like the UK where you actually can get locked up for life. Remember a few years ago when some guys tried and failed to do more terrorist bombings in London? At least one of the culprits fled to Italy and demanded to be tried there. He knew that he'd get maybe 10 years at most and be set free if he faced what passes for Italian justice.
No, GP is right. The reason we have stupid laws is because we have stupid and/or corrupt politicians. The judge in this case isn't necessarily either stupid or corrupt - quite often an astute judge who recognises a stupid law will set up a trial case (preferably by finding against someone big enough to take care of themselves like Google) which they know will almost certainly go to appeal. Once it goes to appeal, any precedent set is more binding on the lower courts...
...Except that italy's judiciary (as the judiciary of most of the world, except the former british empire) does not operate under common law, but civil law. Under civil law, precedents do not matter, only the law (as written by the legislative branch) and its interpretation matter.
Let's say that I copy a work that you made, and then say that I made it. Unless the people I release it to recognize that it's yours, how in the world are they supposed to know that it's not my content? And how in the world should they be liable for me claiming that it's my own? Not only is that a logistical nightmare (maybe even impossible), but it's also a childish thing to ask for. What it boils down to is that you (or your guardian in the case where you are not mentally disabled) are responsible for the protection of your own rights. If I constantly harass you (phone calls, emails, whatever so long as it's non-violent), it's up to you to get the police to do something about it. If I threaten to kill you, it's up to you to take measures to protect yourself (calling the cops, hiring a body guard, etc). Freedom is not free, and neither are your rights. You need to fight for them, and to think that someone else should be doing that for you is ignorance at best...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
It's unlikely most countries would adopt the same restrictions China has, but obviously when Europe starts impacting the internet, pants are rightfully bricked. (Not that the U.S. lawmakers haven't had their fair share of calls for net filtering and ISP responsibility in the name of children, privacy, and copyright.)
Just to imagine what the landscape could look like a few years from now, following is *paraphrased* from Google's hearing before congress in 2006.
Some governments impose restrictions that make our mission difficult to achieve, and this is what we have encountered in Italy. In such a situation, we have to add to the balance a third fundamental commitment:
(c) Be responsive to local conditions.
So with that framework in mind, we decided to try a different path, a path rooted in the very pragmatic calculation that we could provide more access to more information to more Italian citizens more reliably by offering a new service – Google.it – that, though subject to Italy's self-censorship requirements, would have some significant advantages. Above all, it would be faster and more reliable, and would provide more and better search results for all but a handful of politically sensitive subjects. We also developed several elements that distinguish our service in Italy, including:
* Disclosure to users -- We will give notification to Italian users whenever search results have been removed.
* Protection of user privacy -- We will not maintain on Italy soil any services, like email, that involve personal or confidential data. This means that we will not, for example, host Gmail or Blogger, our email and blogging tools, in Italy.
* Continued availability of Google.com -- We will not terminate the availability of our unfiltered Italian-language Google.com service.
How the ways in which you are wrong. I don't even know how to begin listing them. But I will say that the "loophole" is there to protect fundamental rights, but clearly, you're a content creator in some form, and as such, so biased and misguided, that you would happily see those rights revoke/subverted just to further your goals. Now get back in the tub beast.
I agree with google that this is not the best way to go about it....
but when you consider the implications of just what was being done to the poor kid.
Child p0rnopgraphy, snuff movies, animal cruelty, mental abuse etc...the list goes on as certain things
that should not be shown on the internet (or ever for that matter).
If there was child p0rnography on youtube, would google execs have swallowed this pill any easier.
would they have realized just what this video is equivalent to...
The exec will probably get a slap on the wrist in the very end, and a huge fine....but the message will be crystal clear to all other youtube like vendors.....you are responsible for your content. No more using , "we are not to be held liable for..." crap.
If a newspaper printed a child in a somewhat sexually explicit manner, and came out saying, well we did not create the ad, we are not responsible for the picture used in the ad, they would get laughed at.
The courts just wanted to make a clear example of what will not be allowed on the internet.....i agree with them on that point.
The most important part is that the rest of the community will realize how bad this situation is and start reviewing their own footage to make sure no crap is on there....
As for the exec, he has already made his millions, working for google, google made sure of it, and being their fall guy, is less destructive then them being tied as a whole to this situation. Now we will see a new slew of software that reads through the videos to check for illegal content such as this kid being abused. There are plenty of people in starving countries that can be asked to work for google on a per video basis that would be very happy to be included in a starting economy such as this one, not only to make some money but also get more technology in their country.
If [this] is a valid precedent, then in any moment slashdot admins could be convicted in Italy for an AC comment.
I think the safest best is that the slashdot mothership corporation CEO's might be held liable for slashdot posts.
Exactly what do you mean by admins? Sysadmins? Were any Google sysadmins held liable in this case?
Or any of us, if we didnt promoted down that comment when had moderating points.
Were any youtube users held liable in this case?
Exactly what do you base your statements on? I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know Italian law, but I think it could say that CEOs are liable, but not other staff and certainly not users/consumers/customers. How do you know it doesn't?
My parent said:
This has nothing to do with the autistic boy in the video
The summary said:
a YouTube video showing a boy with Downs syndrome
And the internets at http://autism.suite101.com/article.cfm/autism_and_down_syndrome said:
One set of co-morbid conditions that are experiencing an upsurge in research is the existence of an autism spectrum disorder in an individual who also has Down syndrome
If autism and Down syndrome can coexist, it seems reasonable they can also not coexist, and that they therefore are different things.
Please don't confuse the two.
bingo, I mean, centro!
You are privileging the hypothesis. Amanda Knox and her Boyfriend are obviously innocent. Rudy Guede is obviously the sole perpetrator.
hey editors, RTFA.
Down's syndrome is not mentioned at all in there. Autism is.
My son is autistic. There's a very big difference between the two.
Actually not.
The "someone else" has been convicted before the other 2 because he chose a kind of speedy trial in which, if you are convicted, your sentence is automatically reduced by 1/3.
Judges said all of them (1+2) did it together.
Now, we can certainly think SHE is innocent, I have no opinion about this.
However, please note that every penal system is different, it's not a given that the US system is the best.
For instance, in Italy you can appeal once automatically (not in the US unless you have some valid reason) and them a second time if some conditions are met. In the US if you get a jury made up of stupid people you are screwed.
However, I fully understand you, because if a pretty Italian girl had been convicted in the US, in Italy everyone would be screaming about the terrible US penal system in which innocent people are sent to prison; her parents would be on all the tv shows.
Did you see the Amanda Knox trial? This is the same legal system that convicted 2 obviously innocent people of murder with no evidence and sentenced them to prison for over 20 years even though they had already CONVICTED SOMEONE ELSE FOR THE SAME CRIME!
So according to this logic if 3 people participate in robbing a store then only one of them can be convicted. Because otherwise those other two people will be sentenced to prison even they may have already CONVICTED SOMEONE ELSE FOR THE SAME CRIME!!
Privacy in Italy is serious businnes, as it's a means for politcians to cover they dirty ass. They are cutting down on legal interceptions as well.
You must not pay ANY attention to Italian politics. Italy is the joke of Europe. lol
Spain, Portugal, Croatia, etc. are all more efficient and less corrupt. Turkey very likely matches Italy if your counting raw incidences, but Turkish corruption has a more administrative character, so people lose less money to corruption.
I know numerous real Italian-born highly educated young Italians living in Europe, except for a couple girls who choose to live near their parents, all prefer living abroad in France, Germany, or even miserable Britian over living in Italy.
It's a astonishingly bad time for young Italians living in Italy. Berlusconi's government's employment regulations have ensured most will never have the life their parents lived. I'm seriously not kidding, all the smart ones expatriate.
Berlusconi is apparently trying to gain some control over the web with this move, well he controls most non-web based news already.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I find myself surprisingly on the side of the convictors in this case. I don't care if every stupid video of some cretin doing something nasty gets posted publicly; free speech is a great thing, but it should not be Google's position to blindly defend it. Providing a place for this kind of media results in a gray area for the behavior depicted.
Copyright belongs to the person behind the camera, admittedly. However, responsibility for showing to the world mistreatment of living beings does fall to Google for *not* screening it privately first.
There can be other places to post videos of cruel behavior; Google does not to staunchly defend people's rights here, and unless they mean to, they should admit responsibility and discontinue allowing inappropriate media to be posted. If they don't want to provide the resources for financial or other reason, fine. Stop allowing posting altogether and get out of the video-hosting business. If they want to provide a place for people to show their true selves, however, they should be prepared to defend them or accept punishment on their behalf.
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
Thank you for adding a lol to that sentence, it shows how childish you are.
It's not that I do not agree with the content. Italy is the most corrupt state, the less free for speech and criticism, probably the less technologically advanced and by far one of the worst economies in Europe. I will expatriate the day I finish my phd.
But you can easily step down from your pedestal and shove your derision up your ignorant ass.
For example, here in Italy the government has absolutely no control over the courts. There is not political statement in justice. They follow the law by principle and this is likely a case where the judges asked the parliament for modernizing the law. For example they have issued a very short conviction (under two years convictions are not served if you are uncensored).
The fact that you (and many others) think Berlusconi has anything to do with this shows how ignorant you are. Berlusconi fucking hates judges. They are constantly prosecuting him for corruption. For this he is trying to put them under the control of the government. It is hilarious that for definitely killing justice and protecting corruption he is trying to implement the kind of system you have in mind (and probably in your country)... Maybe he should just rename corruption to lobbying and be done, like in the US.
Google makes money from those videos posted on Youtube.
This is honestly the first time in my life that I am ashamed of my heritage.
Hear hear.
Though Slashdot's random inspirational quote is unusually appropriate:
Never frighten a small man -- he'll kill you.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
In my time, every time I have had to deal with a judge, I've felt the actions taken and the course of events were fair and intelligent.
While the US legal system is far from perfect, it deserves credit for the effort it makes to try to become perfect. Compare that to Italy's legal system, which is only slightly less fair than trial by ordeal.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
The account holder is Toyota, and Google is the auto transport company.
George W Bush.
Check And Mate. USA Wins!
-S
I think anyone who's been watching Berlusconi's rise in political power, and the means he has employed to do so, and how he has used it to bouy his own media empire, would find it hard to believe he didn't have something to do with that clip appearing on youtube in the first place in order to spark the entire process.
Look around, its not even the first time HE has pulled something like this, its just now he's employing the tactic against the net rather than his industrial competitors.
links to the video.
This is honestly the first time in my life that I am ashamed of my heritage.
I hope I'm not interpreting you incorrectly, but this gives the impression you don't feel that the previous actions of fascist Italy in recent history were shameful. I presume (and hope) that's not what you intended? (Honest question not trolling.)
Frankly I think this Google incident (and apparently there are a number of other cases the Italian government are pursuing) reeks of fascism to me.
I wasn't alive for the WW2 era fascism. And perhaps I'm not as up on international politics as I should be... If there are other events just as bad as this in recent history (as you imply), then I would be ashamed of that as well. I just didn't know about that before now... Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Actually, Al Gore won the 2000 election.
The title is a bit misleading - it wasn't the executives of Google Italy, but the big boys at Google Inc. that were convicted. These individuals live and work in the U.S. , and they were tried and convicted in absentia. (source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1253383/Italy-convicts-Google-executives-autism-bullying-video.html)
If Italy wanted to actually punish these individuals, they would have to extradite them first, which I definitely wouldn't see happening, as it would be practically impossible to prove dual criminality and probable cause, both of which are required by U.S. courts.
If the party bringing this action had really wanted to exact "justice" upon Google, they would have been better advised to make a civil case against Google Italy, whose assets are subject to Italian law. As it stands, though, this "conviction" has no actual effect, even if it were a death sentence, and is more of a public statement against Google than anything else. To think that the Italian judiciary believes that Web services are criminally responsible for the content that their users post, though, is still scary.
Of the 3 executives who were convicted only one could be called an "italian exec" (former Google Italy board member George De Los Reyes), the other two are David Drummond (Google's top lawyer) and Peter Fleischer (looks like he's an exec in charge of privacy) and are based in California.
This is part of a larger problem brought on by movements such as political correctness (and by some racial, cultural, and religious groups) where people are developing a belief that they have a "right" to silence anything that offends them. This is completely counter to free speech.
There is always the risk that some people will be offended when someone else is exercising their free speech rights. The person being bullied in this case could just choose to not watch a video that offends him or her. Governments turning into "nanny states" to prevent their poor, defenseless citizens from being threatened or offended by online content are going to have a real chilling effect on exercise of free speech, even in countries where supposedly that right still exists.
</rant>
Yesterday it worked; today it is not working; Windows is like that...
Thank goodness the US has the CDA Section 230
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act
In summary Section 30 "provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by others".
It's time for the EU to have a similar law.
Uh...no, they really were obviously innocent. There is simply no other way to interpret the physical evidence. And fuck you, by the way, for not caring about the physical evidence. That kind of thinking makes the world hell for many people living today.
It's all well and good to say that they had wildly differing stories, or try to psychoanalyze their stories, but you've got to understand that everyone will act strangely when they are thrust into a situation they don't understand, because they are set up to fail. In the US, we claim that that you have a right to sit down with your attorney before you are questioned because you need to understand what is going on if you have any hope of acting appropriately.
You are simply hypothesizing about what may or may not have been possible when you say "it is entirely possible for more than one person to participate in a murder." That hypothesis has no value in the face of the actual evidence, and facts in the case. You develop a hypothesis to explain evidence, you don't develop a hypothesis and then look for evidence. That's backwards, and it's what was done in this case.
P.S. I am really sorry about the swearing, but your attitude about sending people, who were almost certainly innocent in the face of the facts, to jail because they acted strangely and changed their story is so morally repugnant and appalling to me that if I met you on the street I would probably punch you in the face. I am a pacifist, BTW.
The evidence suggests she was present at the apartment, which is not at all surprising, because she lived there. It does not in any way suggest she was present in the apartment during the murder.
Berlusconi hasn't stolen nearly the quantity that Bush stole, nor murdered nearly so many innocent people. I'm unsure however that Bush was actually quite so blatantly corrupt as Berlusconi.
For example, I would compare the fact that Bush repealed the estate tax for 4 years with the fact that Berlusconi passed a two month tax amnesty for bringing money back into Italy from Swiss bank accounts.
Bush's temporary repeal of the estate tax seems more like grand standing because rich people must actually die within those four years for their children to benefit. Berlusconi used those two months to personally move like 500M euros from his Swiss bank accounts back into Italy.
Are these incidents comparable? I'd say both passed enormous other tax breaks for the rich, although perhaps Bush's were more onerous. We know both threw enormous sums of money towards their powerful corporate friends. Yes, Bush gave away vastly more money, but one should compare these numbers with the GDP, and shadow GDP in Italy's case.
Italy isn't nearly so blatantly or aggressive in foreign affairs of course. In particular, Italy didn't transparently fake the justifications for invading another country while expecting the obviously fake justifications would improve their electoral chances.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Nope, thanks to The Principle of Democracy(tm) we, the people, are responsible for our stupid laws. The US, congress as a whole, typically has an approval rating in the high '20s or low '30s, and voters are always saying we need to change 'em out. But if you ask them about their own representative, the approval rating is more likely to be in the '60s or '70s. The problem is that voters do not see past their own personal situation when voting, so they vote what's best for them. It is easy for them to see how they have been negatively effected by others' voting, but they fail to see how their votes have negatively effected others.
Berlusconi has been prosecuted for 20 years by the same sort of judges. The government is all but involved in this stuff. It's only the judges. It is incredible how people misrepresents reality.
As a parent of a child with down syndrome it honestly saddens me that nobody in this entire conversation of 300 odd has even mentioned down syndrome.
I don't believe the Google executives should be convicted and sentenced, but any fine for Google is a drop in the ocean. Google put that video online for 2 MONTHS. It was their FAILURE TO ACT that is on trial here. I don't think for a moment that they can control what's uploaded, but they do have the responsibility to investigate a complaint about a video and remove it if the complaint is valid. They didn't do this in a timely fashion, and not doing so was negligence by management because they are ultimately in control of the process and systems that manage these complaints.
Nobody will probably ever read this, I don't have the karma score to be heard, and that just saddens me even more.
The university I went to has a bulletin board people may post adds on. The adds must conform to a ToS and if they are objectionable will be taken down. The board is just a wall with thumb tacs.
I heard the police wanted to sue the president of the university because some students thought it would be funny to xerox their butt and post it.
This is honestly the first time in my life that I am ashamed of my heritage.
You shouldn't. Just because some other guy somewhere, who claims the same heritage as you (and it's a damn vague thing to define in the first place!), did something nasty, it does not in any way relate to you.
I mean, do you feel ashamed of being human because of Pol Pot?
It wasn't "just some guy". It was someone in a position of authority whom the people (by proxy of elected officials) have allowed to retain the position of authority...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Doesn't change a thing, unless you were one of those people who voted, directly or indirectly, for this.
Three Italian Google executives have been convicted of privacy violations in Italy over the contents of a YouTube video showing a boy with Downs syndrome being bullied
According to the linked article, the Google executives are not Italian, it was a Google Video (rather than YouTube) video, and the boy was autistic (not Downs [sic] syndrome). If the article didn't say it, where the hell did the information come from?
dom
That by definition you are using this content to turn a financial profit.
It's interesting to note that the video wasn't posted to YouTube, but on Google Video, which at the time did not contain ads.
The video was available online for 2 MONTHS.
Google makes money with ADS on Youtube.
Therefore Google made money publishing that video.
Youtube (owned by Google) is a CONTENT PUBLISHER. It must be subject to the same laws that applies to the other publishers.
The original poster didn't read the article carefully, I think. The executives were convicted in Italy, but they weren't Italian executives. In fact, they don't (or in the case of Reyes, didn't; he left) even work there.