Irish Judge Orders 'The Internet' To Delete Video 243
New submitter edanto writes "A young Irish man wrongly accused of jumping from a taxi without paying the fare has secured a judgement from an Irish court ordering the video removed from the entire Internet. Experts from Google, Youtube, Facebook, and others must tell the court in two weeks if this is technically possible. The thing is, the video is accurate, it is only a comment that wrongly identified Eoin McKeogh as the fare-jumper in the video that is inaccurate. It's not clear if the judge has made any orders about the comment."
With no power comes no responsiblity (Score:5, Informative)
By the power invested by my lion tamer hat, I order unicorns to stop farting rainbows.
By commenting I can delete videos? Cool! (Score:5, Informative)
So, if there's some video I don't like on the Internet, I just go there and add a comment saying that it is this Irish dude doing whatever it is that is in the video? I can think of lots of embarrassing videos that various celebrities would like to see go away. Just add "Hey! That's Eoin McKeogh!" to the video and then sue in Ireland.
This is just one of many problems I see with this ruling. It just was the most interesting one.
Re:Cue the Streisand effect in ..... (Score:5, Informative)
Also a testament to the stupidity of mob justice. Before it emerged that this guy had been wrongly identified, you had people posting his home address on busily trafficked sites, his phone number, metaphorically throwing nooses over lamp posts, the works. Afterwards, the same people were still trying to pin something on him somehow because he had the temerity to make them look like trigger happy vigilante clowns without a clue, which is what they are.
I don't blame him for trying to strike back through the legal system but since the video doesn't in fact identify him I'm not sure why he wants it pulled down. Renamed maybe might be a better option.
Re:A different perspective (Score:5, Informative)
Except that even if it's completely removed once, it will resurface widely and immediately. If reducing the harm to Mr. McKeogh's reputation is the priority, they should leave all known copies up, but add a note that the person is NOT Mr. McKeogh, possibly with a link to this case.
I'm sure the judge is not a numbskull, but the whole problem is not the video, but the misinformation accompanying the video.
Re:Overstepping your jurisdiction much? (Score:2, Informative)
Google threatening to relocate its business to a friendlier European state is probably enough to make Irish politicians crap themselves and change the law to suit Google.
You're kidding, right? There are no friendlier states.
Ireland does have low corporate tax rates, but that isn't enough for Google and other large companies (for example, my company's VMware purchases are bought on paper from an Irish subsidiary).
There's a technique called the double Irish Dutch sandwich which lets you create corporate structures resident in Ireland but Ireland considers them non-resident for tax purposes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement [wikipedia.org]