Google execs found guilty in Italy over video posting - what now for social networks?

I'm still reeling from the shock of hearing the news today that an Italian court has found three Google executives guilty (it acquitted the fourth), convicting them to suspended six-month sentences. We have been awaiting the outcome of this trial for a long time, but I honestly didn't expect it to go this way, especially considering that similar cases in other countries had not resulted in convictions.  Both common sense and legal opinion shared the view that it was not reasonable to expect a publishing platform - in this case Google Videos - to be responsible for every piece of content, provided they responded to complaints immediately by removing any offensive content.

The Google employees were sued over a video posted to Google in 2006, showing four youths bullying a child with learning difficulties.   The Google executives were acquitted of the other charge of defamation, but were found guilty of a privacy violation, of not obtaining the consent for publication of all those appearing in the video.

Here is the statement from Google following the verdict.  An extract:

"It attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming. European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear."

Richard Thomas, the UK's former information commissioner and consultant to privacy law firm Hunton & Williams, said the case was "ridiculous".

"It is like prosecuting the post office for hate mail that is sent in the post," he told BBC News. "I can't imagine anything similar happening in this country. The case wasn't brought by the Italian equivalent of the information commissioner but by criminal prosecutors and we don't know their motives. "I find it worrying that the chief privacy officer who had nothing to do with the video has been found guilty. It is unrealistic to expect firms to monitor everything that goes online." 

Peter Fleischer, privacy counsel at Google, questioned how many internet platforms would be able to continue if the decision held - it is being appealed by Google.

There are two interpretations of this ruling that I can think of right now.  One is that the Italian political and judicial systems are completely out of touch with Web 2.0 and really have no concept of the internet and what havoc this case law may wreak upon it.  This may indeed be the case.

The other (not mutually exclusive) is that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has an enormous axe to grind in the form of his his Mediaset network, the only major private TV network in Italy.  Berlusconi's government is currently pushing through new measures that would give the state control over online video content and force anyone who regularly uploads videos to obtain a license from the Ministry of Communications.

The new Internet restrictions, opponents say, are yet another attempt by Berlusconi's party to protect Mediaset's bottom line in the age of online video sharing. "This decree is an enormous gift to Mediaset," says Paolo Gentiloni, a former Communications Minister who is now the opposition's point man on media policy. "We suspect that this maneuver is aimed at slowing the growth of the web's video offerings by a government that has a personal interest in supporting private TV."

The new rules would require Internet service providers to remove content the state deems is in violation of copyright law, or face a fine of up to $210,000. "We are concerned over the fact that Internet service providers, like YouTube, that simply make content available to the general public, are being bundled together with traditional television networks that actually manage content," Marco Pancini, Google's European affairs chief, told the newspaper La Stampa. "It amounts to destroying the entire Internet system."

I haven't been able to find out whether that ruling has gone through, as expected, on Feb 4th this year (can anyone update me?), but regardless, it seems possible that the judgement today may have been influenced by other than altruistic motives.

eModeration has, by coincidence, just published a free white paper on the subject of Moderation in Social Networks, in which we firmly recommend that brands moderate the content uploaded by users on their social network pages/channels precisely because the social network platforms themselves can't.  This ruling would seem to make it all the more imperative that brands enforce moderation - please take a look at the white paper for a guide.

And whilst we await the results of Google's appeal (and potentially the future of Web 2.0), we do of course feel duty-bound to offer our moderation services to any platforms who feel in need of a helping hand :-)