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In Germany, Offensive Autocomplete Is No Laughing Matter
itwbennett writes "We've all had a chuckle over Google's autocomplete results for various search queries. But one German businessman had a less funny experience when he searched for his name on Google.de: The autocomplete suggested search terms where his name was tied with 'Scientology' and 'fraud' (in German, of course). This was back in 2010. In 2012, a German court ruled that the autocomplete terms did not infringe the plaintiff's privacy. Now, a year later, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe has overturned that ruling and ordered that Google remove offensive search suggestions when notified."
The notion that McDonalds cheeseburgers are delicious is offensive to cheeseburgers everywhere.
So don't do this in Germany.
Google are not writing that though. What they would effectively be writing is "'Herr Rolf is a fraud' is one of the most commonly searched terms in our search engine" which would be pretty easy to prove and hence it is not defamatory.
I think that's why the court required the "when notified" part. I don't agree, but at least it is feasible to implement.
freedom of speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you like, nor does it mean you get an audience.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually it does, at least in terms of ideas. That's why where freedom of speech is limited in the states, it's not broad but very specific. The idea of fires in theaters, whether in fantasy or theories or reporting on actual fires is not forbidden in the US, just yelling it in cases which can cause a deadly stampede.
Germany otoh, has a free speech clause in it's constitution but has a whole host of illegal ideas, which is the exact opposite of free speech.
If you're referring to Mein Kampf, you're mistaken. Publishing excerpts of it is prosecuted in civil courts, but only because the Bavarian state claims the copyright. When Hitler killed himself, his estate went to the state, including the publishing rights of that book. The copyright is about to expire after which everybody will be free to print copies in Germany.
On the other hand, distribution and use of some symbols commonly associated with Nazi ideology is a prohibited by the law. If and how much freedom of speech is restricted by these laws is a matter of debate. Certainly, the US is more permissive in this regard, but one should not forget that these laws grew out of denazification regulations instituted by the Allied occupation forces after World War 2.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
If a lot of people are entering the search query "Bob Somelastname pedophile" then Google autocomplete will add the word "pedophile" whenever someone types "Bob Somelastname". Google is not trying to be offensive, its just an algorithm that is based on the most common searches.
Sorry, but no. Google already filters out LOTS of things, among them many words related to porn and many things Google doesn't like to see connected to its name if you start to type "Google". Nobody knows what else they filter here. Basically Google is redacting its auto-completion heavily already.
If this were indeed a plain algorithm I would tend to agree with you. But it isn't.
In this case, googleing the name "Bettina Wulff" of the first lady would autocomplete to things like "escort" and "prostitute",
Hmmm . . . when I enter "Bettina Wulff" into amazon.de, it suggests to me:
Kunden, die Betinna Wulff gekauft haben, kauften auch: . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Didn't you know, "freedom" is whatever USA has at any given moment? As the liberties change, the definition of freedom changes with it. This is how we can say "land of the free" without choking on the words.
You are correct in that the nature of free speech limitations can be different in the US vs. Germany. However, the limitations to free speech in the US are actually more broad rather than more specific. In the US, limitations are only based on broad categories such as libel, rather than making specific ideas illegal. For example, I can not legally publicly say that you enjoy frequent coitus with your mother. If false, it is libel/slander, and if true, a violation of your right to privacy (assuming you consider dissemination of such information damaging). But publicly proclaiming you to be a motherfscker is illegal not because statements regarding maternal copulation are explicitly outlawed, but because they fall under a restricted category.
OTOH, the topic of TFA is regarding a category, not a specific idea, specifically speech that violates ones right to privacy. As such, it is conceivable that a US court could make the same ruling that the German court did in this case.