Sean Aman: Chroming Up

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Sean evaluates Google — he welcomes your questions and comments!

Google Execs Face Jail Time In Italy

A video uploaded to Google’s Video Italian site showing students in a classroom taunting a student with down-syndrome was requested to be removed by an individual and the Italian Interior Ministry. Google removed the video within 24hours, but that wasn’t enough. Peter Fleischer of Google’s global privacy counsel, and three other exces face up to 36 months for allowing the video to be uploaded in the first place.

“Despite Google’s removal of the clip, Milian’s public prosecutor is going after Google’s executives for allowing the clip to be posted.

The prosecutor, Francesco Cajani, is prosecuting Google as an ISP. Unlike in the United States, ISPs in Italy are responsible for third-party content on their sites, rules similar to those that govern newspapers and television stations in Italy.

Google disagrees with this. A Google spokesperson told Bentley, “We cannot agree with the concept that a tool can be blamed for the use that is made of it.”

In this instance, Google is right. It’s simply not feasible to police every piece of content put on the Internet for offensiveness. As long as Google was responsive to complaints, its employees should not be punished for the actions of a few high school jerks.” (Link)

Should Google restrict videos with this type of material, and who else to blame other than the youths? I agree with the statement about not being able to police every piece of content put up on the Internet. There’s always going to be something, whether it be light or crude in it’s offensiveness that someone is not going to approve of, but as long as Google or any other content provider is responsive to the complaints then there should be no further action. Should Google be let off the hook?