Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

From some other pages about this case:

(italics mine):

"Prosecutors say they are aware Google cannot screen all videos, but maintain the company didn't have enough automatic filters in place as well as warnings to users on privacy and copyright laws. They also say Google didn't have enough workers assigned to its Italian service in order to react quickly to videos flagged as inappropriate by viewers."

So, they already know screening isn't feasible, for the rest it's really only about a matter of degree, and that should carry jail terms ?



I'm not defending the prosecution's legal position, only your claim that it would be infeasible to screen the content.


You're entitled to your opinion that it's feasible.

Just as I'm entitled to mine, and it seems to be shared by Google, and the prosecution in this case.

Of course that is not a guarantee that I'm right.

But let's just say that maybe for 5 years or so I operated an office with people screening live video and because of that I'm all too aware of how fallible that is. You'd have to screen double, have an open channel between your screeners and the uploaders, and you'd need positive identification of everybody in every video uploaded.

And our screening parameters were a lot less strict than what google/youtube would have to operate under in order for this to be done so that in the future this could not have happened.

For one, any video that has a person in it could be construed as a breach of privacy, so now you have to figure out who that person is, maybe ask their permission and so on.

The burden of proof that a video is ok to upload should lie with the uploader, only they have the ability to make that call, everybody else is missing just too much context.

And why would a child with Downs have different privacy rights than anybody else ?

So a ruling that would be favourable to the plaintiffs would quickly be seized by follow ons from other people that felt that their privacy was somehow violated, possibly in different media (text ? photographs ?) and so on.

If there ever was a slippery slope example than this would be it, and I think it really ought to stop right where it is at this point.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: