3 ms·
What about Google's right to free speech? Censoring search results is a violation of Google's right to express itself, which is just as important and legally de
by noamyoungerm 12y ago
What about Google's right to free speech? Censoring search results is a violation of Google's right to express itself, which is just as important and legally defensible as a newspaper's right to do the same.
- nraynaud 12y agonope, 1) Google is offered a safe harbor for a lot of crap under the premise that it is not editing what it displays in the search result, hence what it displays is not the expression of a "speech" 2) the free speech is not absolute in Europe, article 10 gives some restrictions that could be imposed to free speech.
- vidarh 12y agoFree speech is not absolute in any country in the world. In this case, the EU is trying to balance a right to free speech with privacy rights that have a history of very strong protections in Europe, on the assumption that violation of privacy rights can be a direct harm to people, and your rights to free speech does not extend to violate my rights to privacy to the extent of potentially causing harm unless there are yet other interests that factor in (such as public interest is, say, knowing whether or not a public figure is corrupt). Further, if Google wants to make the argument that its index is expression, then it'd open the floodgates to get sued for any defamatory material, copyright violations etc. in its index. At least in Europe I doubt Google can get away with claiming its index is expression without being in for a world of hurt.