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In Brazil, Google Fined For Content of Anonymous Posting
Sabriel writes "Google's appeal against a 2008 defamation ruling in Brazil over an anonymous posting on Orkut has been denied, and Google has been fined $8,500US ($9,100) for the crime of being vandalized. In the words of the judge, Alvimar de Avila, 'By making space available on virtual networking sites, in which users can post any type of message without any checks beforehand, with offensive and injurious content, and, in many cases, of unknown origin, [Google] assumes the risk of causing damage [to other people].' I'd submit a blunter opinion of this farce, but it might be considered offensive and injurious content. ... I wonder if he's related to the judge in Italy?"
I'm not agreeing with this judge at all, please don't assume that for a minute.
However, we are entering a very precarious phase of the internet. As more and more of our user-generated content goes online and into "cloud" storage, we are turning over huge amounts of private information and possibly illegal data to these hosting companies. The push to upload data is growing, and the counter-push to demand responsibility of the hosts is also growing.
The first volley was almost 10 years ago when Napster was taken down for enabling illegal filesharing. Lately The Pirate Bay has been under attack for the same thing. Now we see Google under attack for providing a platform for someone to make illegal statements. The trend is to demand that those that make services available also police those services.
And those making the demands have been winning.
The only true longterm solution is to force encryption and invite-only data access. This pushes us away from an open Internet which Sir Berners-Lee envisioned and into the same parochial networked clusters that we had before.
It's sad, but as long as there are people out there who think that morality can be legislated, then we will forever have the problem of needing to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Someone should spray obscenities on the wall of the judge's house.
Then someone else should sue him for providing the space...
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Every time I hear someone proclaim 'the should be a law against saying X' a little part of me dies...
You clearly need a law against saying "there should be a law againt saying".
Guys, before you get all hot under the collar, please keep in mind that anonymity is forbidden in Brazil by her Federal Constitution; Title II, Chapter 1, Article 5, Paragraph 4:
IV - the expression of thought is free, anonymity being forbidden;
X - the privacy, private life, honour and image of persons are inviolable, and the right to compensation for property or moral damages resulting from their violation is ensured;
So, anonymously posting defaming material against someone else violates at least two of the victim's constitutionally guaranteed civil rights in Brazil.
Oh no! Not the blacklist!
That's about stupid. In effect, WalMart should assume responsibility for that mouthy punk who used WalMart's intercom system to tell all black people to leave the store. WalMart is racist, because some kid used their intercom to make a racial statement. Extending that idea just a little bit - if you owned a shopping mall, and some skin heads staged a protest on your property, (with or without your permission) then you would be responsible for all the hate speech that resulted.
The fact is, many nations, including mine, have fascist laws that need to be changed. We need more activists working to make free speech a reality, and stop holding web sites and site administrators responsible for the rantings of ignoramuses.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The problem with this trend is that the internet isn't like real life. In real life, stealing your information is difficult. The thief would have to dig through your trash and other distasteful things, maybe even break into your house. And if they wanted to see what kinds of things you were doing, or what you liked to buy, maybe so they could sell that information to an advertising company; they would have to hire a private investigator.
And that's just for you. What about everyone else?
The internet, and the way most people use it, leaves us all much more exposed. The simplest tracking cookie can tell someone everywhere you've been, from the items pages of amazon to your private social networking profile. Anonymity on the internet keeps us safe by making it that much harder to mine accurate information.
Remember that (Brazilian) woman who had her insurance revoked after the insurer learned that she had pictures on (a friend's) facebook account, wherein those pictures she was smiling and having a good time, so she (obviously) must be cured of her major depression. Reality is much different. The not-drug treatment for depression is socialization, and everyone smiles for the camera. I hope she sued the balls off of that company, but I never followed up on that story.
This is just an example of the damage that a company (which most people would agree is a legal one) can cause by abusing the exposure people face on the internet. What would less scrupulous individuals do if the internet lost anonymity? I'm sure it wouldn't affect anyone using it criminally. They'd simply get a proxy service or make their own. Suddenly, your information would become even more valuable, and you might get blamed for crimes you didn't commit if someone used your information to slander another person.
The internet allows anonymity for a reason. It must stay free and open and anonymous.
Demanding to change that is folly, and the laws that allow for this kind of criminalization of the service providers are trying to do just that.
The essence of time is transient. Always be sure to make haste slowly.
He wasn't criticizing the judge, so I am not sure exactly why you are defending him. He was criticizing Brazil's laws (civil or otherwise). Brazil's laws around libel and slander absolutely suck beyond all comprehension. Brazil has close to the worst in the world. They do infringe greatly on the quality of public speech in Brazil, and if crap like this continues, all speech by all citizens in Brazil. The US on the other hand has, bar none, the best libel and slander laws in the world... which is to say, we basically have none. In order to get nailed for libel or slander in the US you need to 1) cause actual and real harm 2) personally know it is a lie 3) are presumed innocent with extremely high bars set for proving 1 & 2, and 4) can counter sue any asshole that loses their case. You are more likely to be struck dead by lightening than get sued and lose a slander case in the US.
That said, the US has an equivalent to Brazil's terrible libel and slander laws. US copyright laws have more or less the same effect. The only reason why I would take evil US copyright laws over evil Brazil libel and slander laws is that you can make a half-assed argument that copyright does something useful and, far more importantly, crappy slander and libel laws protect slime ball politicians much better than crappy copyright laws.
Brazil is actually doing some innovative stuff in terms of copyright law. I don't know exactly where it stands today, but they had an awesome proposal that they were giving serious though to a little while back on enforcing sanity in copyright law. Give me that plus US libel and slander law, and I think you are looking at some pretty decent steps taken in protecting freedom of speech.
No one implied that Google was hacked. Providing a place where people might express themselves does not make you responsible for every idea that might be expressed. It's as simple as that. Own a pub? A couple of gorillas decide to duke it out, for any number of reasons? HEY! IT'S YOUR FAULT FOR HAVING A PUBLIC PLACE WHERE PEOPLE CAN DRINK, TALK, OR FIGHT!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Can you name a single country in the world that does? Say what you like, but the fact is that all over the world governments and especially the public support censorship. You just say the magic words: child porn, terrorism, Muhammad, anorexia, extreme porn, etc, etc and people, pundits and politicians will trip over themselves in their eagerness to shut the web down. Public support for censorship in western democracies is overwhelming.
You don't think this is "really" supporting censorship. Well then here it is: The Ultimate Censorship Supporter Acid Test v0.9:
Someone has written a graphic, explicit, sordid, supportive, but purely textual fictional story about sexually molesting children under the age of 5. It has been uploaded to a webserver somewhere. Should this page/site be censored?
If you answered yes (or are prepared to argue for it) then you are a firm supporter of censorship. You support the censorship of the purely written word, because you are either too afraid or too disgusted to stand up for the rights of everybody. People hate this test because it forces them to interpret the law and rights they way they should be interpreted; as applying equally, logically, and without prejudice to everyone, everywhere, all of the time.
Unfortunate schmucks like me who actually took these principles to heart in their formative years then get lumped with heaps of shit for daring to mention them out in the open where pedophiles/terrorists/witches/anorexics/suicide groups/etc are involved. I suppose we should have spent our youth learning to be hypocrites in order to survive in this enlightened age.
Google are fighting a losing battle. The public, governments, the media and now the legal system are not on their side. The internet genie is being put back in the bottle, one step at a time.
May the Maths Be with you!
If the law deserves to be mocked...
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)