The fact that some comments are defending Google is insane to me. My only guess is that they are all from USA and have a very "american" view of things.
Google has an ethical and moral responsibility to not allow its platform to be used for defamatory purposes.
While Google is an American company, it operates in many countries around the world and should be held accountable for its actions in each of these countries. The issue is not about one country telling another what to do but rather about a company being held accountable for its actions in a particular jurisdiction. The Canadian court system has the responsibility to enforce Canadian laws and protect the rights of its citizens, including the Montrealer in this case.
If you don't agree with that, don't offer your service in Canada.
You probably don't believe a library or book store should be sued if they sell a book with defamatory content, so why do you think Google should be here?
The connection between wrongdoing by Google is even more attenuated here, since Google is mostly an indexer, with limited curation.
If the library was informed of the defamatory content, was asked to remove it, complied, then restored it, was asked to remove it again, complied, restored it again, then finally started refusing to remove it, I’d say suing them is reasonable (which is what happened here as far as I can tell - the exact sequence of events is a bit hard to reconstruct).
No in the US libraries and bookstores are considered "distributors" so they have no obligation to actively review all of their content like "publishers" have, but when given notice they are still obligated to remove any content which violates the law, including defamatory content.
You aren't going to like this, but it turns out the US doesn't reliably enforce anything in its constitution, and even contradicts it on a constant basis. Effectively, the US is governed by an aggregate of very wealthy corporations who get what they want by bartering with politicians.
You're along the right lines, but it's gnarlier than that. National politicians are more like WWE wrestlers or reality show contestants. They have some freedom of action, but not much, and they must stay within the lines of the script. Tellingly, none of them actually legislate anymore, with the exception of the occasional bit of grandstanding that isn't intended to ever get past being a bill. All the bills that do become laws are written by private lawyers working for known or unknown principals, who then hand them off to lobbyists, who then arrange for a politician to sign off on it.
We receive some clues as to who the real shot callers are, because certain agenda items reliably receive bipartisan support. So for example we can conclude that whoever really runs the USA is fully in favor of involvement in the Ukraine war. There's enough publicly available information to build a relatively complete profile of the rulers, but not, so far as I know, enough information to reliably identify any specific persons. Needless to say, efforts to publicly develop and share that profile are rigorously suppressed.
Doesn't matter if it's unconstitutional in the US. Different countries have different laws. If you can't abide by the laws of other countries, don't operate there.
In theory. But Google (and all other "platforms" like FB and Twitter) crossed the Rubicon of curation when they went along with suppression and curation at the behest of agencies around the world.
This "but they're mostly an indexer" argument has not been valid for a very long time. If you want them to be an indexer (and I believe they should) call your local elected representative and have them push legislation defining the "platforms" a public utility following whatever principles of free speech are relevant in your jurisdiction.
And stop pretending Google doesn't already suppress information
Let's establish here that this is reputation and possibly life-ending defamation. The man became suicidal after all.
If I were to write a book with such a claim about you, completely made up, and you'd report this to the book store. Then yes, I very much expect the book store to remove the book. Nobody needs to sue anybody, this only happened as Google could not make up its mind.
Which means that even if you believe they have no responsibility, they're still in the wrong. You can't remove it 5 times and keep letting it resurface. Take a stance and stick with it.
'Ask'ing isn't at issue here. The question is whether the library should bear any liability if it declines to act as a fact checker for every book on its shelves.
In the case where you got your preference you'd mostly see controversial books disappear from the shelves. The business they bring wouldn't be worth a lawsuit.
The first amendment explicitly protects the book store. It's a pretty clear cut case.
I still don't get why the plaintiff didn't simply go after the publisher or host of the offending website to get the content removed. That's the party who's liable for defamation.
Actually why not? Would it put unreasonable burden on them to not distribute libel?
I might let newstands to slide it as reviewing each newspaper every day might be too high ask. But they certainly already curate the books they sell or lend. So why not expect them to also be aware of contents.
A library or book store would probably get sued if they prominently featured a book called "avesteele is a horrible criminal" (full of unsubstantiated claims) and refused to remove it despite being asked nicely and eventually ordered to do so by a judge.
I think your characterization is a straw man. Nobody is arguing that Google shouldn't comply with court decisions. The question is what should happen when an individual comes to Google with a complaint, before they have sought any legal verdict. How is Google supposed to decide whether a claim is true or false? Even if it were their responsibility to determine what counts as defamation, how would we prevent people abusing that system to take down legitimate content they don't like? Do we want tech companies making decisions like this independently of the legal system?
My thought is that it's not up to Google or any company to be the judge and jury... if the statements are defamatory then the plaintiff should go to an elected judge and have their accuser brought to justice, and the judge can wield the power of the state to demand search engines and other publishers remove those results. I think you would agree that simply removing the search results in the short term doesn't bring the wrongdoers to justice at all. Perhaps this is an indictment of the slow movement of the justice system for cases like this.
Which is exactly what happened: the Montrealer did indeed ask Google to remove the defamatory search results, but they refused. So he took the matter to court and obtained a ruling from an elected judge and jury.
The court's decision to order Google to pay $500,000 in damages shows that there are consequences and you can't ignore them forever just because you're Google.
I'm also sure that the Montrealer tried to take down the original source directly, without succeeding.
I can’t find any indication this was deemed defamatory in a court of law until this ruling. Did I miss it?
My whole point is that Google has to remove anything the moment somebody asks, because if it is later determined to be defamatory by a court, they’ll be liable. That appears to be what happened here, unless I missed something.
That's a fair point. It's implied to be defamatory but not explicitly cited as legally defamatory. If that's so, then I completely agree with you.
I'm going to try to search around and see if there's more information about this. For example, did the man in question try to sue the website and get it removed? (I realize this isn't always possible.)
If Google allows defamatory content to be displayed on their platform, knowing that it is defamatory, it cannot continue to promote it and be exempt from any consequences.
While I am not suggesting that every reported link should be removed, when a Judge makes a ruling, it must be taken seriously and given value.
I agree with you, but my understanding in briefly reading this case is that the plaintiff (via their 'lifelong friend' Mr. T. U.) interacted with Google; not a judge with a ruling. But perhaps I'm missing some part of it.
The correspondence with Google begins at line [66]
I'm not american and I don't like this ruling. Google shouldn't be responsible for censoring the internet. If there is a site out there then Google should be allowed to link to it.
It’s not about should Google police the internet, but instead should they follow the laws of the countries they are operating in. If Google failed to follow a DMCA takedown request on YouTube videos you bet they would get into legal trouble in the US, why should things be different if a different country is involved.
Google didn’t need to identify the link that needed to be removed, they where ordered to remove it and then restored it.
You may want Google to not be responsible for censoring the internet, and you might not like a Canadian court telling what Google to do on google.ca, but this is what Google has to say:
> For many issues, such as privacy or defamation, our legal obligations may vary country by country, as different jurisdictions have come to different conclusions about how to deal with these complex topics.
> Beyond removing content as required by law, we also have a set of policies that go beyond what’s legally required, mostly focused on highly personal content appearing on the open web.
Google isn’t able to censor the Internet. They could remove all links to anything Microsoft, MS would still be on the Internet.
If you truly believe that delisting someone is “censoring the Internet” then they’re also censoring me when they don’t list my homepage on queries for “very cool dudes.”
Take it a step further. If your DNS is seized, your site is still accessible as it would still be on the internet. It's pretty similar to deleting a link to your site as only previous users with the IP could access it, much the same like users navigating directly to microsoft.com if Google removed all links in search.
Is DNS seizure censorship? I'm not equating the two, but I want to understand your view that deleting or restricting information is not censorship.
If it was the gov't directing a registrar to seize a domain name, that's pretty clearly a violation of the first amendment.
If a registrar seized a domain name, that wouldn't be a first amendment per se, but it would probably be a breach of contract and should be illegal one way or another.
And then there's some grey areas with copyright that I think have been hammered out in courts… IANAL
Your argument seems to be that Google should not be held responsible for removing links from their platform, regardless of their content.
However, it is important to consider the potential harm caused by certain links, such as revenge pornography, which can be extremely damaging to individuals. Should Google be allowed to link to such content?
If you are against the ruling in this case, are you also opposed to DMCA takedowns?
- "If you are against the ruling in this case, are you also opposed to DMCA takedowns?"
Yes, and yes; and triply-yes if it's a DMCA theory that alleges that linking to a page containing allegedly infringing material also constitutes infringement.
> it is important to consider the potential harm caused by certain links, such as revenge pornography, which can be extremely damaging to individuals.
Information does not cause damage, people do. Surely the onus must be on the people who use the information to cause damage? For example, those in the article who chose to not do business with the Montrealer because of the invalid information they leveraged. They caused the damage claimed in court. Why is Google responsible for their poor judgement?
> are you also opposed to DMCA takedowns?
If you stand by takedowns, why prefer removal of a link over the source material? Surely once the actual content goes away so too will the link? If the content is still out there, it will still be found, if not by Google, by some other means.
It's important to recognize the role that platforms like Google can play in facilitating that harm.
What if the website containing harmful content is hosted on a Russian server that ignores DMCA takedowns and there is no way to remove it?
What if the majority of traffic to that website comes from Google, should Google not take any responsibility for promoting that content? Or should Google take proactive measures to prevent harm, even if they are not the source of the content?
> Or should Google take proactive measures to prevent harm
Meaning, should Google babysit people with occasional poor judgement? After all, if people always acted rationally with a clear head information would be completely innocuous. But, indeed, there will always be some crazies out there.
In a similar vein, does a hammer manufacturer have the responsibility to babysit the occasional person who will use a hammer to bludgeon another to death? I say no. The is no intent by the manufacturer to see bludgeoning carried out. If the user of a tool uses poor judgement, that's on them.
We don't go after the Ford Motor Company every time someone gets a speeding ticket while driving a Ford, so what is special about Google?
I'm not sure I follow. We are talking about the party who caused the harm. The harm isn't caused when a lie is posted on the internet. The harm isn't caused when the lie is repeated on the internet. The lie itself can cause no harm. It is just information, and information cannot harm.
Irrational people can, and do, reach for a lie and, out of poor judgement, create harm. But the poor judgement is the problem, not the lie, hammer, or car. The latter three do not act. If people were infallible the existence of the lie would mean nothing as it could not possibly lead to harm.
Of course, people are not infallible and harm will be created. The onus being placed on the party causing harm, not those who made commonly used tools available to the party at fault is recognized everywhere else. What is special about Google?
This is so patently false I don't think it's worth continuing this discussion.
There are so many very obvious ways that information, especially false information, can cause demonstrable, material harm that I cannot view this argument as anything other than ideological dogma with no basis in reality.
> There are so many very obvious ways that information, especially false information, can cause demonstrable, material harm
Like what? Let's pretend, for argument's sake, that this website containing inflammatory information was never found by another person. What harm would the information cause? The answer is that it wouldn't cause any harm. How could it?
Not even the court case tried to make this claim. It claimed the harm was caused by the poor judgment of people in the man's life.
Why? What's the incentive? It affects me in no way if you missed something, or you don't believe me, or whatever it is that prompted this request. I find enjoyment in writing down my own neural activity, but there is nothing exciting about copying/pasting someone else's.
> I can't see anything that looks remotely like what you say here.
What did you see? What harm do you think was caused? The article I read said that the man was harmed by having people disassociate with him. Not the lie disassociating with him, people disassociating with him. Those people exhibited poor judgment in their willingness to harm another person and, if the the courts determine the harm is worthy of legal reprieve, why are the people making those poor decisions not who were penalized for their actions? Why is their stupidity Google's responsibility?
"I didn't know not to harm this man. A computer I was using said it was okay! It must be the computer's fault." should not be a sufficient argument in a court of law. But here we are.
The lie can cause harm. Your logic is flawed. It's as saying as telling a captain telling a soldier to kill a child is harmless. Because it's only information,and information is harmless. The cause of the cause is a cause.
Like what? I'm going to write a lie on a piece of paper and seal it in a safe which no person can access. Is it going to break free and kill us all? Or what harm should we expect from it?
Back to reality, it won't cause any harm. If someone with poor judgment found a way into the safe, read the lie, and then did something stupid, that could result in harm. But it would be the person doing something stupid that caused the harm.
Even the court case was clear that the harm caused was in people making poor decisions after reading the lie, not the lie itself. Why are the people who caused the harm claimed in the case not held responsible for their poor judgment? What is special about Google that it gets to take responsibility for unrelated people doing something stupid?
Fortunately in this case the harm caused by those people was limited, but if the harm was greater, like someone murdered the guy after reading the lie, would it be reasonable to charge Google with murder and absolve the murderer of responsibility?
Your example with the safe is obviously absurd. No one is suggesting that the mere existence of untrue information, in a vacuum, causes harm. Communicating it to people, presented as true information, is where the harm comes.
If you tell someone there are no peanuts in their meal, and they have a peanut allergy, they will eat it because of your false assurance and be harmed.
If you tell someone the car dealership down the street always gives amazing deals and gives lifetime warranties for free, but they're selling lemons and fraudulent warranties, your endorsement of their lies can entice more people into getting swindled by them.
If you tell someone the car dealership down the street is selling lemons and fraudulent warranties, when in reality they give good deals and honor their warranties faithfully, you are driving away business from them, which harms them financially.
"I didn't harm the person with the peanut allergy; the peanuts did!" Bullshit. They ate it in this scenario specifically because they trusted your assurance that it was safe.
"I didn't harm the people who got swindled; the car dealership did!" You both harmed them. Your false statements gave them extra legitimacy. Plus, the lies of the car dealership itself caused harm here.
"I didn't harm the car dealership; the people who didn't go there did!" Bullshit. You gratuitously introduced false information into a system where it didn't otherwise exist, defaming the car dealership and causing it to lose business that would otherwise have supported it financially.
I think that should be sufficient, since you're making an absolute, categorical claim, meaning that any nontrivial counterexample refutes it.
> If you tell someone there are no peanuts in their meal, and they have a peanut allergy, they will eat it because of your false assurance and be harmed.
The harm here is in the act of serving peanuts to someone who is known to have an allergy, not the lie. You can say there are no peanuts and then briskly take back the food before consumption, replacing it with a peanut-free alternative. Nobody would be harmed in that scenario, even with the exact same lie told. The lie is not where the harm is found.
> If you tell someone the car dealership down the street always gives amazing deals and gives lifetime warranties for free, but they're selling lemons and fraudulent warranties, your endorsement of their lies can entice more people into getting swindled by them.
Slightly closer, but still misses the mark. You are only harming yourself by acting on the lie.
With respect to what we are actually talking about, there are four parties:
1. Someone who told a lie.
2. Someone who perpetuated a lie.
3. Someone who caused harm after encountering the lie perpetuated.
4. Someone who was harmed by the person causing harm.
If you tell me that the cars at the dealership down the street are free, all you have to do is ask for a test-drive and never come back! And if I tell someone else and if that someone else follows through: Harm will ensue from the theft. But why am I, #2 on the list, who did nothing but repeat what I heard, the one going to court on theft charges?
Even if you want to say I am an accessory and should be punished for that, why do I have to take the entire brunt of it? Why do #1 and #3 get off scot free?
We used to say ignorance is no excuse, but it seems you are saying that ignorance is a perfectly valid excuse. We used to believe that one should know not to cause harm to others even when there is lie trying to justify it. What happened?
The article indicates that the law was only concerned with removal of links in Canada anyway, so if total removal is impossible as you say, it can still be firewalled at the border. China has no problem removing undesirable content from outside of their jurisdiction. What's Canada's problem?
>Google shouldn't be responsible for censoring the internet.
Then maybe they shouldn't have started doing so to begin with? As the joke goes, 'we've settled that, now we're negotiating on price.' This is nothing more than an acknowledgement of what has already been happening.
False, they should be responsible and they already are.
Google does not link to pirated content. If and when they do, they take it down when it's reported. As they are legally required to do.
Google may remove personal information as part of the "right to forget" EU directive. Death threats. Calls to violence. Revenge porn. As they are legally required to do.
Google will remove CP/underage harmful content as they are legally required to do.
Google may take down insults to the king, gambling sites, drug traffic sites, and all kinds of local legislation.
Besides strictly illegal content, Google also censures content that might be technically legal yet considered distasteful or widely recognized as harmful: porn, terrorist propaganda, gore, etc.
Google is not above the law, it can't do whatever it wants.
Should it censor your political speech? No. But that's not what this is about.
Should ISP's be required to screen all their clients?
Then what about datacenters?
Then what about utility providers to the datacenters?
Then what about roads or food service to people who work at datacenters that host websites that promote false content?
I don't think it's a US-centric philosophy that the evildoer should be punished, not everyone who breathes the same air.
(And for anyone who didn't read the full text of the court's ruling, the URL was changed, the article was re-written, and eventually the person's name was misspelled to keep trying to evade Google's sanctions. How does anyone fight that level of misdirection and evil?)
If an ISP was hosting child porn and someone asked them to stop and they didn't then they would be held responsible. It's not the fact that someone's using it for bad things, it's the not putting it right.
Hacker News skews very American so that statement can be made about most topic - my suspicion is that most of the comments against google are also from Americans
> The fact that some comments are defending Google is insane to me. My only guess is that they are all from USA and have a very "american" view of things.
This is Hacker News; the readership has a lot of temporarily embarrassed monopolists raised on business models that assume that the regulations that apply to others, don't apply to them.
> My only guess is that they are all from USA and have a very "american" view of things.
I would guess it's narrower than that, and what you're seeing is mostly from SV. Even then, not everyone in SV is so willing to cut Google slack. But they can be the loudest on HN at times.
If we are just talking about the search engine, does google offer services in Canadan via local caching, or do Canadians have to retrieve Googles services from the US. It is probably a relevant question, at least legally. Ethically I think there is no "fair" way to do page rankings that would both yield the results people want and avoid pages with false accusations.
Also, legally If google were to start filtering the information it provided in the US based on some criteria other than "we think this is most likely what you were searching for, and look these people paid us to have you look at these first" then they would fall afoul to US laws that would remove their common carrier status. At least that is my understanding.
I mean democracies tell each other what to do in one form or another all the time. The US is not at all shy about pushing other countries around. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad.
So much international law is about synchronizing laws to allow for dealing with these kind of things within a framework where we agree on the common principles.
Sad to say for the US ranters but defamation is a common principle and exists just as much within US law (albiet varying implementations).
I don't understand how it's Google's responsibility to fact-check and police the links it merely indexes (to me, akin to suing a distributor) which is completely protected first amendment speech.
Why didn't the plaintiff simply go after the publisher (the website) and get the false information removed (as well as sue for defamation).
My theory is it’s because tech is braking rules more and more often, and we all just love tech so it’s easier to just victim blame rather than address the actual issues.
I love tech. But you're implying that what tech means to me is basically just a large company. And in fact I don't love large tech companies. The Internet was much more enjoyable before a sales person got a hold of it. And while I do understand that a lot of really great engineering has come from within these companies it doesn't matter if they are abusing their users. Because Google loves it when their brand is associated with something positive. But Google should also be responsible for owning all of the negative their company and employees build.
Finally, I'm an American. I have a very dim view on the positive that Google, Facebook/Meta, Microsoft contribute to society. They're all for profit companies no longer being run with a strong engineering or customer focus. Their goal is to turn more profit. That's not the spirit of tech in my mind. I don't consider any of these companies strong technology contributors anymore. They employ a number of great engineers that still do amazing things. But the companies (the executives, the senior management, the board of directors, etc) are not in it to move the industry in a positive direction. They're in it to make more money. The cost of that misdirection is very high to all. These companies have impacted many lives in very negative ways even though many have never intentionally wanted to use, or be part of, their services. These companies need far more accountability. Hiding behind a company logo should not be something society continues to support.
Everyone secretly thinks they're a tech (or general) genius and will (eventually) be a tech tycoon. An extension of the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire thing".
So imagine this happening to these commenters. Somebody publishes that you're a pedo. Out of the blue. The relationship with your sons break down, nobody wants anything to do with you in community or business and everything you worked for falls apart. For no reason.
Would said commenter now truly say: ah well, go Google! This trillion dollar company should absolute be able to spread this, versus the 5 seconds it takes to take it down.
> Google has an ethical and moral responsibility to not allow its platform to be used for defamatory purposes.
Fine. But do not assume it should be a legal responsibility.
Rephrase the statement to "it has the responsibility to forbid defamatory content" and now you will start wondering if it should have prohibited fox news content on dominion voting or CNN content on Trump's hush money scandal.
Google has an ethical and moral responsibility to not allow its platform to be used for defamatory purposes.
While Google is an American company, it operates in many countries around the world and should be held accountable for its actions in each of these countries. The issue is not about one country telling another what to do but rather about a company being held accountable for its actions in a particular jurisdiction. The Canadian court system has the responsibility to enforce Canadian laws and protect the rights of its citizens, including the Montrealer in this case.
If you don't agree with that, don't offer your service in Canada.