Gone Are Our Civil Liberties… Is Our Internet Freedom Next?

The post read like anything that would pique your interest like a gossip tip from TheYBF, “Bullying: Disabled Boy Abused in School.” The three-minute clip which was posted on Google Video in 2006, showed four Italian youths in the city of Torino teasing an autistic classmate and throwing tissues at him. According to TIME.com, at least 12,000 people clicked on the video before being taken down due to a formal complaint from the Italian Interior Ministry.

The complaint led to a Milan judge convicting three Google executives of privacy violation for not blocking the video from sight on Wednesday (Feb. 24th). David Drummond, Senior Vice President and top legal officer; Peter Fleischer, Chief Privacy Counsel; and former Chief Financial Officer George Reyes — each received a suspended six-month jail sentence.

While Google plans to appeal the ruling, the conviction has sparked a vigorous debate about Internet freedom. In a statement from the search engine behemoth, Google reacted angrily to the verdict, stating, “it [the decision] 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.”

The verdict has given birth to its share of defenders online. Comments made on Twitter have summed up the sentiment of many online users. A Rhode Island filmmaker by the name of Salim Makhlouf expressed his thoughts by stating, “Italy needs to catch up with the times of open networks and get off Google’s back.” The judge’s written ruling has not yet been issued, but the debate between free-flowing content on the Internet and the responsibilities that come with it, continue.

Luca Sofri, a Milan-based journalist and author of wittgenstein.it, one of Italy’s most popular blogs, sums it up nicely by saying, “The Web creates situations that are completely new and don’t have paragons with the world before. If these incidents are happening all over the world and Italy is the only country to condemn Google for it, maybe there’s something we haven’t understood.”

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About the Author
Kevin L. Clark, aka Clark Kent, aka Batman, may go by a few well known monikers, but his writing is in a class of its own. Having penned features for XXL, KING, VIBE and GIANT Magazine, Clark Kent built his name up from the ground-up, beginning with HipHopDX.com. Now, the founder of his own site - Don't Lose Your Day Job [dot com] - Clark Kent joins Black Web 2.0 to push the absurd to the forefront and keep a smile on your face.
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