Brazilian Court Fines Google Yet Again Over Anonymous Orkut Message
from the seriously? dept
Brazil's laws concerning liability for online posting continue to haunt Google for no good reason. For years now, we've been hearing about lawsuits against Google in Brazil because of comments made on Orkut, Google's social networking site that (for whatever reason) is mostly popular in Brazil. Brazil doesn't seem to have a concept of safe harbors or of actually applying liability to those who actually did the actions. Instead, every time that someone does something mean on Orkut, Google gets blamed and fined.Slashdot points us to the latest such case, an appeal of an earlier ruling against Google, where, once again, the judge found that Google should have magically stopped a supposedly defamatory message from being posted:
"By making space available on virtual networking sites, in which users can post any type of message without any checks beforehand, with offensive and injurious content, and, in many cases, of unknown origin, [Google] assumes the risk of causing damage [to other people]," judge Alvimar de Avila said.Of course, that makes no sense. Does that mean webhosts are automatically responsible for any content that people put online? Claiming that just creating a place where people can post messages means liability for the provider creates huge chilling effects. It doesn't make sense for any internet company to operate in Brazil if it has any user-generated component at all. The liability is way too high.
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id just pull out of brazil
and put all servers elsewhere. IF they block so be it
then you can get more stupid like france, australia and china
by removing knolwedge
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Or you can sue the local government if someone shouts something defamatory on a public square, since they made the space available and don't have any check in place to prevent anyone from shouting defamatory messages.
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Is the phone company responsible if I say something defamatory over the phone?
What you seem to be suggesting is that it is the responsibility of any company that provides a communication tool to monitor and censor the communications.
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If someone sprays paint the wall of your house with defamatory content against someone, it is not your fault. BUT, if you fail to clean it or paint over it in a reasonable amount of time, that means you implicitly agrees with the graffiti, and therefore should be held responsible.
It is crazy, but it is the law.
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I wonder..
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Come on, man, smart up!!
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Your way is the easy way, but fighting this is the right way. Now we wait and see what Google chooses.
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Maybe we should
Fuck the Brazilian government.
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The biggest issue is....
If people find content or comments difficult to cope with, the Brazilian Government should assist these people in findinding life-long solutions.
Thankfully, there are a few options. For example, a person can find a new website to read that doesn't offend them. If this is not possible, another possibility is to develop strategies that will enable them to cope with offensive remarks that occur all the time in real life. However, for this to be fruitful, they should seek assistance from a professional that is well versed in the field of psychiatry. I am assuming these professionals are available in Brazil. It may be wise for Brazil to consider similar medical policy for it's inhabitants. Take the US example as a model: Medicaid, a program available to the poorest of US citizens, covers a majority portion of the costs involved to receive professional insight and assistance.
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Call me a conspiracy theorist...
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Knowing that the case against Google being a political move is not that absurd.
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