It's not "freedom to laugh at retards" that's the issue. No one is arguing that Google should have been able to keep the video up (not that there isn't some merit to that argument), just that as long as Google complies with police requests in a timely matter, the company and its employees should not be liable for someone else using their service to post content.
>>They have the same responsibility as Google has on this issue.
No, they don't. Google owned and operated the site that hosted the video; they have the full responsibility for insuring that they abide by Italian law. Guilty as charged.
I'm not sure what the law is called (something about electronic bulletin boards if memory serves me right), but the gist of it is to protect website owners from this very thing; having to vet every content uploaded by individual users.
It was originally meant to protect providers of online bulletin boards, as this was some time before the Web 2.0 kind of user information sharing exploded.
If it's overturned in the EU court of law, fine - that's the process. Really, I find it quite surprising that there is so much opposition the ruling; the video is horrible, it is disgusting, it is wrong. Bravo for Italy (and China for that matter) for identifying and trying to do something about a serious issue.
What do you even mean by that? I mean, even try to visualize the alternative; that every video, picture, audio clip and piece of text submitted to any website is first vetted by a human being. Any content that that individual cannot get behind will not be published.
Sure, I would like to have material like that magically disappear too, along with the kind of people who would do such a thing. But if we move the level of discourse into the real world rather than la-la land, we have to accept that we can neither use magic, nor vet every piece of content prior to publishing it.
You are free to post obnoxious shit on the internet without it being vetted first, just like you are free to say obnoxious shit without permission from anyone. The consequences come afterwards — and the fault is yours, not the providers of the medium you chose as the vessel for your content.
Freedom of speech ain't pretty. But the alternative is much much worse. This is the only way it can be done.
and the fault is yours, not the providers of the medium you chose as the vessel for your content.
And in the case of free speech, this would mean Italy is doing the equivalent of trying to jail air for not maintaining privacy. Or, perhaps more accurately, they're jailing one who makes air (God and/or plants, take your pick) for not making air shut certain people up before they say something wrong.
It makes no sense no matter how you look at it. Even if there isn't freedom of speech in a location, you don't put the papermakers in jail because someone wrote something mean on it.
Most subjects we can disagree with each other, and up vote for a well written comment, but for some reason this comment strikes me as really odd. I find it really hard to believe someone, the kind of person who would be attracted to "hacker news" would have this view point. The 1 hour old account, is also suspicious.
What I really like about Hacker News is that it's overwhelmingly made up people cleverly disagreeing - so that plants/idiots/jokers are generally more obvious.
Why don't they convict the ISPs, Internet Cafe's or the Computer Manufacturers?
They have the same responsibility as Google has on this issue.