Sean Walther's Blog

Google executives convicted in Italy, because of uploaded content!

According to an article on the BBC site, Google bosses convicted in Italy, three Google executives were convicted because they “allowed” someone to upload a video of an autistic kid being bullied.

From the article:

The Google employees were accused of breaking Italian law by allowing the video to be posted online.

Judge Oscar Magi absolved the three of defamation but convicted them of privacy violations.

The UK’s former Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said the case gave privacy laws a “bad name”.

The three employees, Peter Fleischer, David Drummond and George De Los Reyes, received suspended six-month sentences, while a fourth defendant, product manager Arvind Desikan, was acquitted.

David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google and one of those convicted, said he was “outraged” by the decision.

…

I have to say something here.  This is absurd.  No individual should ever be able to come to this conclusion.

I do feel for the victim and his family, this is horrible.  The bullies should be locked up no matter their age.  Whoever uploaded the video should be charged, even if it wasn’t the bullies.  The site it was uploaded to, can’t be held liable for the action’s of it’s users.

Frequently people in power, judges, lawyers, lawmakers, do not understand what is really going on.  I find it hard to believe, but I believe, that ignorance makes it’s way into even the most honorable of positions.  Notice I’m not saying stupidity, just ignorance (although that gets there too).  Many of the people in positions of power are a bit older, and dedicated to their field.  They likely do not have the time to “understand” the internet, they have assistants for that.

If we take out the “magical” internet from this equation, lets just say this bullying occurred in a WalMart (no offense WalMart).  Would we expect WalMart to be held accountable for the bullying?  No.  We may say that if WalMart didn’t react appropriately, maybe by stopping the fight, they could be held liable for something — but in general, no.  Google could be held liable in the same way, if they ignore direct requests to take down the video.  Which they didn’t, Google took down the video when requested.  Google has an interface, “Flag”, to report inappropriate content.

These cases where ISPs or internet sites are being held responsible for the behavior of their users have to go away.  There is no alternative.  Are we willing to say someone could kill someone, post it on YouTube, and get an exec sent to jail?  People just can’t have that power.  The person who uploaded the content should be charged.

I wonder how many news sources in Italy showed portions of the video on TV?  Isn’t that worse than YouTube simply hosting the file for someone?  Those news sources pushed the video to users, instead of just letting users find it.

Landlord’s aren’t held accountable for crimes committed on their property by their tenants?  Why should an ISP?

Cities aren’t responsible for car accidents (even though, arguably, they might be responsible) that occur on city roads (assuming there are no issues with the road or signage).

Was Polaroid ever responsible for photos taken on their instant film?

Finally — is the US Postal Service responsible for delivering letters from the Unabomber?  Just like Google, the USPS delivered something uploaded by a “user” to another user (even worse, they brought it directly to them, instead of allowing them to find it).

One day, I hope, someone with some knowledge about how the internet works — finds some sort of position of power.

Related Posts

• June 30, 2010 -- Flash and HTML5 Video: YouTube’s perspective on the video tag (0)
  In conversations with designers and developers we have been discussing the pro and cons of using HTM...
• April 26, 2010 -- Google fined for Orkut user’s comment (0)
  Google was fined in Brazil for an Orkut user calling a priest a "pedophile". Ignorance and stupid...
• February 23, 2010 -- The Death Blow to IE6? (2)
  Web developers are constantly fighting the IE6 battle. We don't want to support it, but all too o...
• February 23, 2010 -- IE6: Graphical Illustration of Problems with CSS (0)
  Posted on flickr, css mess, is one artist's (atzu) homage to the problems all web developers face in...
• January 9, 2009 -- In Google We Trust (0)
  I hear about the anti trust lawsuits against Microsoft.  Honestly, I think they are a little bit of ...

Tags: Arvind Desikan, BBC, David Drummond, George De Los Reyes, Google, Italy, Peter Fleischer, Postal Service, Unabomber, USPS, Youtube

1 Comment to Google executives convicted in Italy, because of uploaded content!

Leave a comment