Italy Wants To Put Google Execs In Jail Over Uploaded Video
from the punish-whoever dept
Sometimes you hear about lawsuits that are so bizarre and so wrongheaded, you just have to shake your head and wonder what people are thinking. For example, take this news that Italian prosecutors are preparing to file criminal charges against four Google execs. Why? Not for anything Google, as a company, did. Or anything those executives actually did. But, because four kids filmed themselves taunting a disabled boy in a classroom and that film was uploaded to Google. The four kids in question are also facing criminal charges — which is perfectly reasonable.
But under what distorted sense of justice does one somehow have to have to think that Google executives also deserve criminal charges over this event?
The fact that the video was uploaded to Google gave the prosecutors the evidence necessary to go after the kids in question. Google, itself, had no proactive role in uploading the video. Neither Google, nor the executives in question, had anything to do with the video whatsoever. In fact, Google took the video down within hours of being alerted to it. It serves no viable purpose under any justice system whatsoever to charge Google executives for the content in the video. The report notes that the kids in the video hit the disabled boy with a pack of tissues as well. I would think that the tissue company has just as much, if not more, responsibility for the video than Google. Will we soon see charges against its execs as well?
Filed Under: italy, lawsuits, liability, online video
Companies: google
Comments on “Italy Wants To Put Google Execs In Jail Over Uploaded Video”
Viva Italia!
Just because Yankees live in a culture of avoiding responsibility does not mean others will agree. In other cultures, responsibility is shared in groups.
Re: Viva Italia!
If your comments weren’t so monumentally stupid, they might be funny once in a while. You clearly don’t even understand American culture, so we should take your word on other cultures? Go fuck yourself, asshat.
Re: Re: Viva Italia!
If your comments weren’t so monumentally stupid… Go fuck yourself, asshat.
dude, taunting crippled people is wrong… even when the disability is mental.
Re: Viva Italia!
Wow, that’s the most asinine attitude I’ve ever heard.
If you had any familiarity with how website technology and ethics work, you’d understand that holding a site owner responsible for user content could potentially destroy the internet as we know it today.
You might also realize that the internet crosses cultural boundaries, and YOU have to accept other cultural values as well.
But, hey, if you Italians want to ruin the web for everyone, please, go right ahead. The rest of the world will continue laughing at you for years to come.
Re: Re: Viva Italia!
Dorpass isn’t Italian, just a fucktard.
Re: Re: Viva Italia!
Now it would be nice to explain why “you Italians” is supposed to be an illuminated statement. Italy here, by the way.
Re: Re: Re: Viva Italia!
> it would be nice to explain why “you Italians” is
> supposed to be an illuminated statement.
Not sure why you expect the statement to be illuminated. But an explanation of it is simple: you’re Italian, as are the rest of your countrymen, hence the use of the general “you”; you’re Italian, as are the rest of your countrymen, hence the use of the adjective “Italian”.
Re: Viva Italia!
Yes! All Italy (and maybe all EU) should selfconfine themselves to jail, for brinning up such brats.
Re: Viva Italia!
So, in order to protect the precious Italian children’s eyes and their crippling economy, Google should just block all Italian IPs from accessing their servers.
There are many more offensive things to find on the internet than YouTube.
Google is a big easy target for little stupid Italian prosecutors because they do not know who else to blame.
Re: Re: Viva Italia!
That pretty much sums it up. If the Italian government has a problem with online content they should look at stopping their peasants from accessing it. Not blocking it for the rest of the world. After all, I think stadium cheese is destroying cultures all over the world, including my own, but I am not trying to put a stop to its global production. After all, the birthrate in Italy is declining so fast pretty soon it wont matter what those egocentric world-police demand be enforced upon the rest of us.
Re: Viva Italia!
once italy killed alot of people in ethiopia. all italians should go to jail. resonsibility shared in groups.
Re: Viva Italia!
i want to smack you in the face dorpus, just hit you hard. people as culturally racist and ignorant as you are just plain wastes of life.
Re: Viva Italia!
> In other cultures, responsibility is shared in groups.
Responsibility should only attach to those who are responsible– who commit the act in question. Otherwise it’s not actually responsibility but merely government oppression.
Re: Viva Italia!
The last time I visited Rome..It was a dump..I’m sure it still is. I saw rats nearly the size of cats in the street. Nonwhithstanding..Why doesn’t Italy do everyone a favor and just get rid of the Internet? Start your own Intranet with only Italian websites??
/your women are hairy as some men I have seen..Go tell them to shave their faces..
Re: Viva Italia!
Hence your second class status as a world power.
Re: Viva Italia!
Mike! When are you going to allow us to block useless, trolling, flaming and generally NON-productive comment posters? (See parent.) I’d really love it if I could never see another comment from this trash again.
Re: Viva Italia!
you are a total idiot. Italy needs to look into why kids raised in their society are so perverse.
Yes, clearly they're guilty
And so is the company that manufactured the video camera, and the ISP that provided internet access, and the bus company that shuttled the little jerkwads to school, the construction company that built the school, and the company that manufactured the furniture. Obviously, they all colluded to entice these boys onto this behavior.
legality filter
What’s wrong with delaying public display of videos until they are reviewed for legality? I don’t see why all videos have to get posted, then only later when enough people are outraged does google have to take it down. It seems they bear some responsibility for making visible the illegal activities without checking first to see if there were any illegal activities in the video. Google could have forwarded the video to the proper authorities without ever making it public, which would have cut off the perpetrators from their sick search for infamy.
Re: legality filter
I am sure that would be practical if people are uploading ten of thousand of videos everyday.
Re: legality filter
If people can’t even filter themselves before they utter stupidity on a message board how is it that Google is suppose to filter/censor thousands upon thousands of videos per day to appease the sensitive mental states of those in another country using a service made in the USA. Oh wait we try really hard NOT TO DO THAT HERE.
Re: legality filter
Oh dear God.
I’m reminded of the saying that goes something like “tis better to remain silent and let people THINK you’re stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”. Think about it. Thousands of videos, say 2 minutes each… just how long IS a day in your world? Idiot.
Re: legality filter
Do you have *any* idea how many people that would take to implement? So many, that you would soon thereafter be evaluating pricing tiers for your Google Videos subscription.
Re: Re: legality filter
… “that you would soon thereafter be evaluating pricing tiers for your Google Videos subscription.”
well, *that* would certainly put a stop to much of the rubbish that causes these complaints 😉
(it would also probably stop the service, but that’s another story)
Re: legality filter
Other than the fact that it would be impossible for Google to review all videos for legality, there is another problem. Which countries laws do you base the “legality” on? What if it is legal in the US, France, Italy, etc. but not in China or Pakistan or Sri Lanka? Google can’t allow a video to be uploaded for fear of being prosecuted in Ghana?
Re: legality filter
Ha! Yeah, that’s a great idea if you’re too stupid to understand the math, or unable to conceive of the fact that in some cases people are going to be offended at something that YOU don’t think is a big deal at all. Like calling you a fucktard, I don’t have a problem with that as an accurate and descriptive label for you, so why should you?
Re: legality filter
You tube has something like 10 hours of video uploaded every minute.. You feel like paying for the thousands of staff to check all that fine..
Otherwise forget it..
Re: legality filter
Because in the USA we have the thing called ‘Freedom of Speech’, you can’t be censored just because you say something reprehensible.
How would Google know the video wasn’t staged? It wouldn’t be the first time someone pulled a video hoax. Who determines what is free speech and expression and what is depictions of actual illegal activity? Do you really want an army of lawyers censoring everything on the internet?
Re: legality filter
Would you risk being sued for being the person to approve a video as legal?
Re: legality filter
and it wouldn’t have gotten posted because of the fear of offending someone.
Wheres the law that said you are entitled not to be offended by words?
oh, wait, we’re talking about Europe….that bastion of freedom that jails people for disputing anything relating to the holocaust not OK’d by the JDL or Israel.
Re: legality filter
If Governments or countries want to filter hundreds of thousands of video’s they should be allowed to, but don’t expect Google to do it and try explaining to your populous the extreme cutbacks in funding that you had to make in order to view all videos.
Re: legality filter
Your suggestion is impractical. In Italy alone 200,000 videos are uploaded to Google each day. Assume that each video is 3-5 minutes long one reviewer working an 8 hour shift could only review about 100 videos. Google would have to hire over 2,000 additional employees to handle this.
Stock photography sites do review uploads for quality of content and subject matter. These sites can take up to a month or more before an upload gets through the review queue. Is this what users expect from sites like Google Video, YouTube and Flickr?
Gotta love it
How these individual countries (and even federal and state governments here in the US) think the internet is about THEM.
Yes, France, yes Italy.. the internet is all about you, just like the US and its ignorant rant about internet gambling the web is allllll about you.
F**king idiots.
Youtube Eulogy
If thousands of foreign courts sue Google, will Google hire millions of international lawyers to defend the baby boomer obsession with “freedom of speech”? Or will there come a time when Google executives care more about paying the mortgage on their tacky Spanish villas in the hills of Silicon Valley?
No, Google cannot afford to make itself a shooting target as large as the Earth. It will celebrate its “spin-offs” by breaking up into hundreds of little companies, while search engine technology will become a generic commodity that is maintained locally.
Re: Youtube Eulogy
If thousands of foreign courts sue Google, will Google hire millions of international lawyers to defend the baby boomer obsession with “freedom of speech”?
Come back after your sixth birthday, you poor, crippled moron. Freedom of speech is not a “baby boomer obsession,” but rather a Constitutionally protected right. But they don’t teach about the Constitution in pre-school, do they? When you’re older, say in the fifth grade, maybe you’ll be smart enough to take a civics class, where they’ll explain to you about the Constitution, and other abstract concepts, like rights.
Re: Re: Youtube Eulogy
Come back after your sixth birthday, you poor, crippled moron. Freedom of speech is not a “baby boomer obsession,” but rather a Constitutionally protected right. But they don’t teach about the Constitution in pre-school, do they? When you’re older, say in the fifth grade, maybe you’ll be smart enough to take a civics class, where they’ll explain to you about the Constitution, and other abstract concepts, like rights.
Do Google executives care more about abstract rights, or paying the rent in Silicon Valley? Or should Google executives attend fifth grade classes on Italian civics?
Re: Re: Re: Youtube Eulogy
Once again, you prove that you still don’t have any functioning brain cells.
Re: Re: Re: Youtube Eulogy
I’m sure they’ll worry about italian civics – when they’re in Italy.
You know that old saying, when in Rome, do as the Romans?
When using a US-based service, terms are under US Law…
Have the best day ever.
Re: Re: Youtube Eulogy
> But they don’t teach about the Constitution
> in pre-school, do they?
Unfortunately they don’t seem to be teaching about the Constitution in public schools of any level these days.
Kids can instantly identify Nelson Mandela and Jesse Jackson but they can’t pick Thomas Jefferson out of a photo line-up to save their lives.
Re: Re: Re: Youtube Eulogy
It’s simple. The liberal socialist’s want are kids to be ignorant and stupid of there rights and freedoms. Then later on in life when they don’t have the tools to help themselves, or understand what the government can and can not do these same people can step in and go “Vote for me! I will take care of all of your problems.”. That is how people like Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini got into power. They feed off of the peoples fears and ignorance to get themselves into power.
/On topic
The only people that are responsible for the actions of the over developed DNA shots are the kids, and there parents. It’s just nice to see that they where stupid enough to record and upload it so they could get caught. I hope they get there butt’s tanned good then maybe they thing about what they did.
Re: Re: Re:2 Youtube Eulogy
“The liberal socialist’s want are kids to be ignorant and stupid of there rights and freedoms.”
So, it’s only the kids who are stupid, are they? What’s your age again?
Re: Youtube Eulogy
TROLL!!!!! THE DORPUS IS A TROLL, YOU FOOLS!!! KILL IT! KILL IT!
It is surely their fault....
The people elect the goverment to run the country, so surely they are wholey responsiable for everything that happens in the country..so arrest the goverment…and then the isp, and then the engineer who installed the line and then the person who made the camera which videoed the incident and then the tissue company and then the kids parents for not raising them properly, and then there grandparents for not raising the parents to raise the kids properly and so on….ridiculous waste of time and money as far as i can see, but if it stops them being bored….
Google Videos, YouTube, they could all disappear tomorrow and I wouldn’t know it/life wouldn’t be any different for me. I suppose I am in the minority. Don’t people have better things to do with their time then upload, watch, and download? Do something useful with life!
Re: #16
Have you no imagination at all? You are possibly seeing the forebearer (however crude) to the future of television. I for one am enthralled by its possibility.
aplause
I for one applaud dorpus’ master stroke of flame baiting. I mean surely there aren’t REALLY people this ignorant right? *looks at users to be supported* I mean,,, uh,,, *sigh*
Re: aplause
If we could only keep telling ourselves that enough that we could actually believe it. Unfortunately, I don’t hold homo sapiens sapiens in that high of a regard.
Re: aplause
Yes, everyone knows that dorpus is a master stroker.
Religious Freedom on the Decline
It should be noted that on a worldwide basis, religious freedom is decreasing.
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=11784873
When these courts sue Google for “religious aggression”, is Google going to spend billions on lawyers and lobbyists to demand that laws in other countries be changed? Not a chance.
Re: Religious Freedom on the Decline
You have successfully failed at arguing and common sense.
You’ve also failed at earning any respect, as having completely lost the argument of this blog post’s topic you have dived into trying to make another point you think makes some sort of moral statement.
Unfortunately, you fail again as your new case is just as dumb as your last one.
The reason Google Exec.’s, Bill Gates and others the money and potential desire to do so haven’t/won’t hired lobbyists to change religiously aggressive laws in nations around the world is because religious aggression is a societal/cultural problem before a legal one.
You change then environment, not the laws, first.
And whether or not they do so, or want to is completely irrelevant to the points in here.
One thay...
One thay, all content will be moderated BEFORE being published on the web. Google (and all other big internet companies) will hire hundrends of people who will spend most of the day checking every newly uploaded video to see if it has any inapropiate content. Of course, once the video is approved, the video’s page will say “This video has been approved by Google Inspector #21231”. Sue the inspector if anything goes wrong.
Or they could develop some interesting algorithms to detect faulty images and language (they already are indexing voice in some videos… who knows how much time it’ll take them to accomplish a full blown “let’s allow a machine to understand the whole video” ai?)… AI.Google.com.
Anyways, I’m not so sure suing the excecs makes any sense. What is the purpose of such action? Now, if they dissmised the video alerts, and just left it online…. That would have made sense.
Public Service
It seems to me that without the upload these little cretins would have been able to continue their behavior for some time before anyone would know.
Thank you Google for your help. Because of your service you have helped society find a potentially fatal problem before it was to late.
You don't go to jail in a lawsuit
“Anyways, I’m not so sure suing the excecs makes any sense. What is the purpose of such action? Now, if they dissmised the video alerts, and just left it online…. That would have made sense.”
They’re not suing the execs, they want to arrest them. But difference.
Arrest them!
Arrest the parents who had the handicapped kid. If it weren’t for their particular combination of DNA, he wouldn’t have been born disabled. Let’s put blame where blame lies!
The ridiculousness of some people still amazes me.
Public Service
Nailed it! YouTube’s a service! Whether people use it for good, bad, or ignorant intentions, it is a side note. First and formost, it is audio/video documentation. If people want to DOCUMENT themselves committing crimes, making fools of themselves, etc.. for their 15 minutes, let them and wait on how the laws, and societies of each country respond as they will. YouTube does not pay people to produce the content, and they don’t pay people to watch it. It gathers and displays the content it; then entertains and/or INFORMS.
i.e.
Its like saying we need to sue ford anf gm exec’s for building the cars that some drunk driver used to kill an inocent person with. Absolutely rediculus.
who cares what you think
don’t get me wrong, I’m 2nd generation Italian/American… but the simple fact is, AMERICA CREATED THE DAMN INTERNET. we say what goes, by whom/where/why and when. if it offends you or is illegal in your country, it should be blocked. the internet is about freely sharing ALL information, regardless if it offends you or me!
censorship destroys innovation and progress.
Communication Medium
The internet is a communication medium, just like air/radio/cans-with-strings.
To make an anology, the internet is air and google is a large stadium, except this stadium is omi-present throughout all air and has no physical size and can overlap with other stadiums without issues.
Having google ‘filter’ all that each person says in their stadium before they say it, seems like an issue. Sure, if you ‘overhear’ what someone says, you can report it, but to have a person look over every word is impractical.
A Mentally Handicapped Kid choked on an Italian Sausage While Trying to Speak French
A Mentally Handicapped Kid choked on an Italian Sausage While Trying to Speak French. I think we should sue both Italy and France!
Angry
Whatever…
The Italians are just angry over Ricardo Ricco getting busted for doping in the Tour de France…
And More BombS
WHo the hell give a shit.. So what, kids pick on the little retard.. Ahh shit lets send them to prison.. This world we live in is starting to suck just as bad as you do.
I’ve got an idea.. Let’s all help Iran get a nuke so we can get this party started right!!
Viva Italia
I completely disagree with our Italian friend but what I’m more concerned with is the verbal attack on him for his post.
We can tell people that they are wrong, dead wrong, amazingly and completely wrong without belittling them.
You forgot charge the parents, Grand-parents… and the Pope himself.
The four kids in question are also facing criminal charges — which is perfectly reasonable.
I’m hoping thats a bit of sarcasm.
Not sure if this was mentioned
From what I can see here in this case…if it weren’t for Google and the ability to upload a video to their servers, this video may never have even been seen by law enforcement. Had Google’s service not been available, the swift legal retrobution that these little ba$tardS deserve may never have been executed (certainly when considering statutes of limitations on such acts).
BTW Italia you need to catch up on recent news as this is very similar to Ebay’s recent win over Tiffany & Co. Ebay cannot be held responsible for the contents of the auctions anymore than Google can be held responsible for the contents of it’s video servers.
I hate people who work to the best of their ability too, but....
I think everyone with a youtube account is several more times responsible for what goes on youtube that shouldn’t. I mean, even the newest, crappiest, and most pointless of all videos has a minimum of 300 views by the end of the day. Had those 300 viewers pressed the button to report the video as inappropriate content, google would be capable of taking all the right videos down. Those people that google can’t afford to hire to do this is us, and we’re expected to do it for free the way wiki services have the same expectations.
Try to understand, it’s not the 10 people who read internal google alerts and press delete on videos they then review that are to blame. In fact blaming them doesn’t even make them do a better job, or get more people on their team to help. Blame the world for not voluntarily taking a second out of their time to flag the video they just watched, if it deserves flagging.
Just because Yankees live in a culture of avoiding responsibility does not mean others will agree. In other cultures, responsibility is shared in groups.
Fair enough.
Don’t forget to exclude others: The ISP’s who routed the traffic, the Government (or Government agency) that authorizes internet in the country, the company who produced the copper wire and insulation that the data traveled over, the company who mined the copper that was used in the making of the wire. The PC manufacturer, as well as the company’s the provided the chips, circuit boards, data storage, network connectivity and other required services to access the internet. The power company that provided power to the servers and client in question, the company that provides the power company with coal or other fuels to generate power. The company who makes the generators, along with the companies that make the control, cooling, and other systems required to power the servers, switches, routers, and such. The maker of the Operating Systems the data was hosted on.
This could almost literally go on for pages and pages.
Incredible hypocrisy
This from a country which thinks it is a good idea to grant immunity from prosecution to it’s highest ranking politicians, not least among which is arch-dubious character Silvio Berlusconi and has enacted a law to this end???!! People of Italy, you have truly lost your way!
Keeping on-topic, the people to deal with here are the obnoxious brats who taunted the kid, who won’t be too hard to find given that they publicised themselves in such an obvious way, and perhaps their parents who might be held accountable for raising such idiots!
What about the parents?
Something is wrong in the house that hasn’t effectively taught their children to honor others, who are different from themselves. This has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with a lack of guidance. Yes the children need to be held responsible, but so do the parents of those children.
Everyone is missing the real reason to go after Google: money.
Why sue the kids or their parents when they probably don’t have much money, when you can sue millionaires? This is the real impetus behind this stupidity. GREED.
Just one thing...
This is like suing a business for getting tagged with racist graffiti.
What’s everyone worried about. This isn’t going to see the light day. Berlusconi is going to get greased as he usually does. And that’s going to be the end of that 😉 “I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse”
Berlusconi has been charged with mafia collusion, false accounting, tax fraud, corruption and bribery of police officers and judges. He’s good though – never gone to jail.
If Google Exec’s go to jail, I’ll flip the bill!
European countries, like Italy and France, just seem to have it out to go against any American business, especially one that has become so successful so quickly and is loved by many like Google.
Problem is, every time a government tries to go against Google in some way, people get really, really pissed off. They keep targeting Google for understanding the new business world, and yet, too stupid to just do what they do, which is doing things right.
Bias, bias, bias.
The publishers and even the defendants themselves lend additional charges consisting of unlawful disclosure of a minor’s identity, details of patient privacy, supports bias, reverse discrimination and even malicious prosecution. With respect to criminal charges, even simple assault seems questionable. As for torture and/or terrorism, unless premeditation is shown, those too questionably apply. As for any civil judgment resulting from the incident and resultant disclosures, the fact that the school and parents assumed the risk of subjecting the patient to expectable persecution, mitigates much if not all punitive damages, plus opens the door for a counter lawsuit by the defendant’s Barrister(s). Comments contained herein in no way constitute legal advice, more than personal opinion and/or infers no more than satirical commentary on empirical hypo racy.
tankyo
"Italy Wants To Put Google Execs In Jail Over Uploaded Video"
To The Italian Prosecutors’ :
“YOUR ADDICTION TO CRACK IS SERIOUSLY AFFECTING YOUR JOB PERFORMANCE!! BUTTHOLES”
” }:> “
Italy sues Google!?
Thankfully, Italy isn’t picking on a pipsqueak. Could this be another chapter in the Burlesque-owni attempt to cripple the internet in Italy?
I was afraid of exactly this more than 15 years ago but believed it would be purely political rather than a personal vendetta by a Machiavellian narcissist. Let’s hope Google fights ‘tooth and nail’, after all the internet is the blood and guts of Google.