p2pnet.net News:- How did a video of teenagers bullying an autistic classmate turn up on the Google Italy site? – Italian prosecutors are asking.

Now two of the company’s employees are accused of failing to check on video’s content, says Reuters, continuing:

"The video, which sparked outrage in the country, showed four teenagers beating and poking fun at a 17-year-old disabled boy in a classroom in the northern Italian city of Turin.

"Prosecutors have already put the four students and a teacher under investigation. The students have also been suspended until the end of the school year."

A gang of girls organised attacks on peers at a fairground in Perugia, a boy suffering from Down’s syndrome was "cruelly victimised" at school in Turin and four boys have been arrested in Reggio Calabria for sexually abusing a 12-year-old, says ANSA.

"Two surveys published on Monday show that about half of Italian teenagers say they have either been bullied or are often afraid of it happening. Expressing his concern, Premier Romano Prodi said on Monday that bullying reflected a ‘deterioration of the social fabric’ and proposed the creation of a new institutional figure to deal with it."

In the US, Google Video, SoapBox, YouTube and the like are, "generally protected" by the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), which grants safe harbour, "so long as they are not the ‘publishers’ of any illegal material and take it down immediately when requested," says Ars Technica.

But, "Such laws do not necessarily translate to other countries, as Google no doubt knows; the company has been sued in France by film production company Flach Film (French) over a movie of theirs which was later uploaded to Google Video and briefly available free of charge."

Flach’s The World According to Bush was being distributed by Google for free, said the company, demanding compensation.

This film aimed to "pass through the looking glass and to show how the Bushes, father and son, have not only dined with the devil but have often invited themselves to his table," said Flach, also stating, among other things:

"The grandfather of the current President, Prescott Bush, made his fortune by managing Nazi companies after Hitler seized power. In 1942, his companies were confiscated for collaboration with the enemy. George Bush Senior, Ronald Reagan’s Vice-President and then President from 1988 to 1992, armed and financed Saddam Hussein. He approved the shipping of germ warfare strains to Iraq, thus enabling the country to launch a chemical attack against Iranian troops and the Kurdish population."

Meanwhile, "We’ve been helping Italian police with the investigation and we’re happy to cooperate," Reuters has a Google spokeswoman saying.

In Europe, "Google is facing a growing number of legal challenges by plaintiffs seeking to enforce local laws that seek to rein in the free flow of information on which the Internet relies," says Reuters.

"U.S. law generally treats Google as a distributor of information rather than having editorial responsibility for the content that appears on its automated Web sites."

Meanwhile, "Sometimes people need to be shocked out of complacency or offended by witnessing something despicable; such video clips can be powerful catalysts for social change," adds Ars Technica.

"Requiring Google to screen content could easily lead to a ‘lowest-common-denominator’ system in which anything edgy, questionable, or disturbing is simply censored, since it’s not worth the time and money needed to fight every battle. While this might rid legitimate online video sites in major countries of certain kinds of clips (offshore sites are unlikely to care), it’s hardly a great solution to a complicated problem."

Also See:
Reuters – Italy opens probe into Google over bullying video, November 24, 2006
ANSA – Italy in bullying panic, November 24, 2006
Ars Technica – Do Google and YouTube have ethical responsibility for their video services?, November 27, 2006
managing Nazi companies – More Google movie trouble, November 23, 2006

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