This story out of Italy has got to be the most amazing example I've ever seen of overreach by European courts in quite some time. Four Google executives have been tried and three of them convicted, in an Italian court, for allowing some teenage boys in Turin to upload a video on YouTube which portrayed them bullying an autistic kid. Technically, they were convicted of violating Italian privacy laws, though found not guilty of deformation of the law.
As for the kids in question, they were convicted, and received ten months of community service. The three convicted Google executives received a jail sentence. This despite the fact they had nothing to do with the video, which Google removed as soon as they were informed of its presence on YouTube.
An appeal of the case is pending. It should never have been brought to court to begin with. Naturally, I am not in favor of bullying autistic people, or anybody else for that matter, but does anybody really believe this case is just about that?
I have this strange idea this whole thing is a test case, with the broader goal of enforcing European standards on the worldwide global net. Unlike China, who at least are not hypocrites about it-they'll just ban offending sites outright-the Europeans just seem to have it in their DNA, I suppose, to make the rest of the world bow down to their will.
They know perfectly well they can't directly impose their will on bloggers or social networking site users, but they seem to be ready to attack the companies, and even company personnel. If they are successful, its only a matter of time before the terms of service on a lot of sites become a lot more stringent. After all, they will be seen as having a responsibility to rein in hate speech, bigotry, prejudice, racism, homophobia, sexism, etc., and anything that might be presented as contributing directly or perhaps even indirectly to such things, which of course will be defined by the courts, mostly European. Look for yet another push for global regulation of the net, probably through the UN.
An attack on free speech? Not directly. It's first an attack on free enterprise, the purpose of which will be the establishment of the duty of blog sites and social networking sites to limit speech on their own private businesses.
Of course, they have a right to do that now, and could anytime they want. You are not guaranteed the right to freedom of speech on a blog which you do not own but which is hosted by a business entity. That entity has the right to set its terms of service. You have no rights other than to comply or leave.
Before long, that right of the hosting company to set its own limits as to what is considered acceptable speech or conduct might well become an obligation under international law.
This is a perfect example of why the US should refrain, for now and forever, from becoming signatories to any multinational treaty, of any kind, and to remove ourselves from the entanglements of any other such treaty.
