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Google Brazil Exec "Detained" For Refusing YouTube Takedown Order
h00manist writes that, as promised, "The police executed an order to detain Google's top executive in Brazil (Original in Portuguese), Fábio José Silva Coelho. Google refused an order to remove a YouTube video which accused a mayoral candidate of several crimes. Police say he will be released today; Brazilian law for the case allows for a one-year max sentence. Streisand Effect, anyone?"
If your company policy requires you to break local laws, you have two options:
1) break local laws, and go to a local jail.
2) quit your job.
There are, of course, ways of changing the laws and such...but until such time as those happen, the two above options are basically your only options.
It's not like the Brazilian court is trying to hide something with this order that now it will be 10x public, you know?
I don't like most of limitations to free speech, but you know, I also don't like transnationals corporations acting like they are above the law of the (several) countries they operate.
A court order in Brazil gave an order, and google was in contempt, don't like it? change the law or don't operate there.
I don't understand the language, but man I'm sure that guy is guilty from seeing the underlined in red document.
Title says it all.
Life is not for the lazy.
In retaliation for Brazil's bullshit, I think Google should block the entire country from accessing any Google services. It should be an all or nothing kind of deal!
Really, i'm completely against any kind of censorship and when i read about this the first time i tough it was something abusive. But after looking at some of the videos... they are just a bunch of lies about the guy, with fake "documents" that doesn't exist showing things he didn't do it. Here in Brazil there's a law that says something like this: if you accuse some candidate about anything during election you have do identify yourself. That's to protect people against things like this. Google did not comply with the law, they were asked to remove and done nothing, now they say excuses like they aren't responsible about user content. When it' s major record company thay don't even ask.. google has their legs open to then. Ridiculous position from a company that i have a lot of respect, hope they apologize their attitude.
@editors, the original article link is wrong.
Getting the actual video view count up is the best way to combat censorship.
Google is known to comply with local law and not display video's that are in violation of several nations laws, when requested to do so by the local authorities. After Thailand blocked youtube, they removed any video that could be insulting to Thailands king Bhumibol, to give an example. Similar actions to remove or at least block content have been taken in several countries after legal and sometimes economical pressure from the country. I'm sure that a next step from Brazil would be to name Google a criminal organization and block all their services for the entire country. It may not be the very next step, but eventually it will get to that point.
The most likely thing that will happens next is that Google will then comply because they can't afford to loose the business if it gets to that. Don't be evil, unless you are losing too much money. My analysiss of Google leaving China is that it wasn't about censorship, they complied to that for quite a while, but about too much effort for the money they were allowed to make by the Chinese government. They were being forced to censor *and* squeezed for the amount of cash they were allowed to pull out of the Chinese economy. The latter made applying the censorship just too much work to be profitable enough.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
If the crime is done by the US military or government or contractors thereof.
We tried modernity, now it's time to return to the good old dark days of South American Fascism.
I find it ironic that the Brazil government which has such weak laws regarding computer hacking that you can do it with impunity would get so irate over an online video defaming an electoral candidate. The government has been trying to improve its online reputation with new laws since 2005 but it has been stuck and constantly debated since then. If only they actually put this much effort into reducing the amount of cybercrime and other illegal material/activities.
Check your sources. Says the Oxford Dictionary that: