In Brazil, Google Fined For Content of Anonymous Posting

Sabriel writes "Google's appeal against a 2008 defamation ruling in Brazil over an anonymous posting on Orkut has been denied, and Google has been fined $8,500US ($9,100) for the crime of being vandalized. In the words of the judge, Alvimar de Avila, '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].' I'd submit a blunter opinion of this farce, but it might be considered offensive and injurious content. ... I wonder if he's related to the judge in Italy?"

Please update summary: "victim" was a priest

[Rogerborg]

Let's be clear that in Brazil, separation of Church and State means "opposite sides of the confession box".

Re:Reading a bulletin or post in a foreign country

[icebraining]

Google Inc. is a registered company in Brazil, so it's bound by Brazilian law. They have fined a Brazilian company, which happens to be a subsidiary of a company from the US.

Re:Policing comments

[Spad]

FTR, the correct format is "Sir Tim" or "Sir Tim Berners-Lee"; Knights are referred to by their First name or Fullname but never just their Surname.

There's a new internet law proposal

[h00manist]

http://slashdot.org/submission/1219710/Open-net-debate-on-Internet-laws-in-Brazil?art_pos=1 [slashdot.org] (links to original story) Brazil has opened public, free, internet debate on it's new internet law proposal. A hodgepodge of contradicting state laws, lawsuits, and rulings were blocking efforts to encourage more internet use, so a new federal law proposal is open to debate, including topics such as education, culture, freedom of expression, right-to-use, user and provider rights and responsibilities, anonymity, content removal and notices, crime and law enforcement, everything. Currently the site accepts comments on each paragraph of the law. Last October there was debate on the general principles to be included in the law. Brazilian Portuguese, but there is Google translate and volunteers translating to English.

Re:The Internet is less free... in Brazil.

[martyros]

It's worse than that - if you own a house and someone spray-paints a libelous message on one of your walls, you could be held responsible.

Yeah, this is the first thing I thought: spray-paint a libelous message on the judge's house, then sue the judge for libel.

Re:The Internet is less free... in Brazil.

[Kirijini]

It's not enough to say, "He said bad things about me." You also have to show financial harm has been caused, and if you can't do that then the anonymous poster, or google.com which allowed the post, would be held blameless and protected by the First Amendment...

Actually, even if you showed financial harm, Google would be immune to liability, thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act [wikipedia.org], which reads:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Essentially this means that Google cannot be held liable for defamation, since Google would have to be treated like a speaker or publisher in order to be liable for defamation. All Google has to do to be immune to defamation suits (and privacy violations, and threats, and nearly every other cause of action that's based on a speech act) is show that it didn't actively influence the content of the speech.