Necessary curbing or censorship? - OG Myth-Weavers

Notices


Worldly Talk

Civil discussion and debate on real world events and issues.


Necessary curbing or censorship?

 
Necessary curbing or censorship?

The recent arrest of Fabio Jose Silva Coelho, head of operations for Google Brazil, is not the first Google employee to be arrested and presumabley 'held accountable' for videos posted on YouTube.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/...ee-speech.html

I'm interested to hear other peoples thoughts on if this is necessary and if some things should be removed or if freedom of speech should prevail? I am especially interested to hear from those in countries other than my own (Canada) on the matter, just to have a little more wordly prespective on the issue.

well since google is an American company they can't legally force google to stop showing certain videos. However if the country doesn't like google then perhaps they should figure out a way to filter it themselves instead of arresting someone who really has no say over what is shown and what isn't

Quote:
Originally Posted by silveroak View Post
What would be the effect of google closing their offices in Brazil?
It would likely affect the ability to perform searches on Google within Brazil, since "closing their offices" really means "shutting down the servers", thus routing traffic to more distant servers (resulting in higher pings).

Quote:
Originally Posted by nautilus_project View Post
The recent arrest of Fabio Jose Silva Coelho, head of operations for Google Brazil, is not the first Google employee to be arrested and presumabley 'held accountable' for videos posted on YouTube.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/...ee-speech.html

I'm interested to hear other peoples thoughts on if this is necessary and if some things should be removed or if freedom of speech should prevail? I am especially interested to hear from those in countries other than my own (Canada) on the matter, just to have a little more wordly prespective on the issue.
I'm an American with, I am learning, somewhat different opinions about free speech than some of my compatriots.

Reading into the article, it's stated that Google/YouTube has the ability to restrict access to Google/YouTube content within certain regions/jurisdictions. The recent anti-Muslim video is cited as an example.

It seems fairly clear that if a national authority like Brazil's court orders Google to restrict access to content, they should do so for the jurisdiction in question. It isn't for Google to decide what is right and lawful around the world, but for the citizenry (as represented by the government) and those people's body of law to decide that.

However, I would maintain that such materials should not be restricted in other nations/jurisdictions unless the content is an infringement of international law.

A close friend of mine was one of the sound engineers employed by Real Audio in the 90's, and one of the things he worked on was assisting people located in the Balkan states in broadcasting through Real Audio to the world when their governments locked down more traditional means of reporting. There are many ways in which the internet protects people as global citizens, and I do think that ability should be protected and fought for.

But no, Google doesn't have the right and certainly doesn't have the responsibility to ignore or undermine the order of a court within a nation. One could fairly argue that the onus for blocking/restricting the content in question is on the nation itself, but if Google/YouTube possesses those controls and wishes to have a business presence in the region in question, I should think it is beholden to follow that region's laws, at least locally.

This does put a strain on global businesses, who will need to have legal divisions for every entity that possesses a legal identity. Any company with a physical presence in a nation will already have access to local legal counsel, though, so it should be a manageable strain.

What is your (Canadian) perspective, n_p?

"When in the course of human events..."

The law isn't necessarily right just because it's the law, and when the law is unjustly violating free speech and unjustly arresting people to censor them the citizens have a duty to overturn that law.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Solaris View Post
"When in the course of human events..."

The law isn't necessarily right just because it's the law, and when the law is unjustly violating free speech and unjustly arresting people to censor them the citizens have a duty to overturn that law.
Perhaps. But Google isn't 'the citizens'.

No, the people who work for google are among 'the citizens.




 

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging (Lite) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Last Database Backup 2024-03-19 05:25:57am local time
Myth-Weavers Status