Italy convicts Google executives for video posted by someone else

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

http://blogs.computerworld.com/15648/google_execs_sentenced_in_italy

In a nutshell, some idiot students in Turin posted a video on Google of them bullying an autistic child. Italian law enforcement found it and tracked down the kids who were arrested and expelled from school, and Google pulled the video. However then Italy decided that Google was responsible for hosting the video and indicted the people heading up their video department. And now found them guilty. Of course they had no knowledge of the video when posted and were responsible for getting it pulled.

Nuts. I wonder what Phil would say.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

This is what you get when you don't have freedom of speech protected. Europe sucks.

[k-onmmunist]

This is what you get when you don't have freedom of speech protected. Europe sucks.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

This is what you get when you don't have freedom of speech protected. Europe sucks.

Yes clearly all of Europe is exactly like Italy.

And anyway my heart hardly bleeds for Google executives.

[Gustaf]

This is what you get when you don't have freedom of speech protected. Europe Italy sucks.

We have freedom of speech in most of Europe.

[Beet]

This is like, if I used the current post to make a threat against someone, law enforcement notifies Dave Leip, who later deletes my post, but he's still charged with inciting violence anyway.

I mean, by this standard, Dave would shut down Atlas.

[dead0man]

Yep and Google should block anybody trying to use their websites from Italy until they fix their idiocy.

[John Dibble]

This is what you get when you don't have freedom of speech protected. Europe Italy sucks.

We have freedom of speech in most of Europe.

Yeah, for the most part, but there's really no higher law that protects it like the First Amendment. This allows for the banning of anything that's seen as offensive in most European countries.

However, in this case I don't really think it's a free speech issue, rather I think it's a misplacement of blame. Posting the video of you committing a crime against someone probably wouldn't be considered protected speech, and it would probably be legitimate to require the host to pull the video. However, the host can't be blamed for the posting since it's not pragmatic for the host to be able to review every post before allowing it. I expect an appeal to overturn this decision.

[k-onmmunist]

This is what you get when you don't have freedom of speech protected. Europe Italy sucks.

We have freedom of speech in most of Europe.

Not in the UK we don't.

[Gren]

Excuse me, but I think I can't understand what you're saying. What freedom of speech are you speaking about? Do you really consider that bullying an autistic child and them posting a video of it is freedom of speech? Or are you speaking about the Google executives? Please explain it.