This week an Italian court sentenced three Google executives to six months in prison for allowing users to post a video on YouTube.

The video, which was uploaded in 2006, showed kids bullying a child with Down’s syndrome.

Sickening video

Let there be no doubt about our position on publishing such videos online. It sickens us, and it must be possible to bring such cases to court. But it is the one that uploaded the video that should be brought to justice.

The Social Web

The problem is that the Italian judge clearly does not understand the nature of the Social Web.

He has a mental lock-in based on the old paradigm of print and broadcasting media, from a time when publishing was for the few and the editor could control what content appeared in their newspapers or on their TV channels.

The whole idea of allowing people to comment on blogs, participate in online discussions and upload their videos makes it impossible to exercise an editorial regime of the old type. Google and YouTube cannot watch every video uploaded to their sites before allowing them to be published. There are simply too many of them.

The Italian government of Berlusconi is even planning a new law making online video services like YouTube liable for invasions of privacy, violations of copyright and other transgressions that occur in user-generated content.

Don’t blame the postman

Paolo Brini, a spokesman for Movimento Scambio Etico, a group that campaigns for an unfettered Internet made the following point after the trial:

“In all of history, nobody ever thought you had to put in jail a postman because a package contained something illegal.”

He has a point, although you would expect the Post Office to help the authorities track down illegal materials like weapons and illegal drugs.

Google did act

What you can expect Google to do is to remove illegal material when they find out about it. Google does, for instance, close down Blogger blogs that violate Goolge guidelines. The Italian video was removed when Google received a formal complaint.

They also helped the police find the person responsible for the video.

The family of the boy has withdrawn its lawsuit against Google, as they believe the case is being used for other purposes than the protection of the boy. The fact that the case was not stopped after this seems to prove that they are right.

The lawyer of the family states that Google has been demonstrating care and sensitivity to the problems of persons with disabilities.

The Italian verdict represents a threat to the social nature of the Web.

Google will appeal the decision.