In 2006 a three-minute clip, which was posted to the Google Video platform, showed four youths in the Italian city of Torino teasing an autistic classmate and throwing tissues at him. At least 12,000 people clicked on the video before Google took it down following a formal complaint from the Italian Interior Ministry. Google angrily stated: ‘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.’
I will assess whether Google acted morally wrong by keeping the clip online, despite the fact that individual viewers had sent written complaints about the video for weeks before it was taken down.
The European Union law gives hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. Google has the moral duty to obey all legal prescriptions; as long as it doesn’t contradict with moral prescriptions.
If Google did violate the law of the European Union it can, normally speaking, be defined as morally wrong. Eventually an Italian judge convicted three Google executives for not blocking the video from the society. However is this legal rule morally justified? One of the characteristics of human nature, according to the hermeneutic perspective, is rationality. This means that humans have a sense of justice and willingness, if not the desire, to act towards others on terms that they can also publicly endorse. Given that no rational person can defend the public humiliation of an innocent person this law is in accordance with morality. Since the law is morally justified, Google has the moral duty to obey this legal rule. Therefore I conclude that Google acted morally wrong by breaking the law.
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7 comments:
I think with this article the one needed to think about is the freedom of expression. Google and youtude which are the major providers online video support this freedom of expression. This freedom of expression is also written in law. In this point of view they are also supporting anonymity. this case of Italian clip is rather extrem example. However if the hosting providers start to regulate every video and post then can we have freedom of any expression in online world? I doubt. If we make space for self-regulation, people can regulate themselves and this is way to acheive true freedom and true morality.
I think that Google should not be blamed. The makers of the video clip and those who put it on the Google Video Platform acted morally wrong. Teasing an autistic class mate who may not be able defend himself, is to my opinion morally wrong.
Since thousands of movies are uploaded daily on the video platform, it cannot be expected from Google that they control each movie before it is uploaded. However when viewers complain, Google should take a look at the movie and delete it if necessary. But I still believe that the makers of the movie are the ones that initially acted morally wrong.
s289233
I agree with ANR240137 that the moral and legal principle of freedom of expression is also important. So, this case has become a morally hard case. There is a good reason to remove the video, because Google should not harm other people, which they did by allowing the video online while knowing that another person was humiliated. There is also good reason to not remove the video, because then Google acts against its own core principle of freedom, which is also an important legal and moral principle. Looking at the MHC from a utilitarian view, not removing the video does not cause happiness to any person, maybe only to the makers of the video. However, removing the video causes happiness to a lot of persons, including the autistic classmate, his family, but also the people who have complaints. Therefore I think Google should have removed the video.
I agree with the author of this principal comment that any firm breaking the law acted morally wrong as it is one of the moral duties of human beings always to obey the law.
However, I do not agree with the author that Google acted morally wrong. It is said that several people contacted Google about the clip, but only when there is hard evidence that proves this is true, then Google can be sentenced guilty and morally wrong as it violated EU law.
In addition, there are certain core principles of morality in our Western liberal society that are relevant in the principal comment particularly: plurality, tolerance and freedom. These core principles in turn all relate to the freedom of speech via the internet.
I agree with the author that the EU law is morally valid. Freedom of speech is important, but there should be a limit.
s926012
s926012 makes an excellent case for this article! The large issue here is that the Google is bound by legal obligations and is expected obey law and only in doing so is acting morally responsible (Hermeneutics).
It is not stated whether Google received (and read) the letters, in this case Google was still unaware and not acting morally wrong, hence Google having a ‘flag’ option to notify for bad content for faster notification. In addition to this why are executives convicted? This is a needle in a haystack situation!
The big question here is if under utilitarianism overall utility is negative and has a negative feedback to Google, then why would they not remove the content? Logic would say that Google has nothing to gain from not removing the video, however if Google did receive and read the notifications then Google acted morally wrong and Google should be sanctioned.
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