Do Google and YouTube have ethical responsibility for their video services?
Google, which already faces several lawsuits in Europe, now finds itself part of an Italian inquiry into a video clip recently posted to Google Video. The clip shows students at a Turin school bullying an autistic student, and has helped to spark a national examination into the rise of bullying in the country (violent video games have yet to be blamed). What makes this case even more interesting is that state prosecutors appear to be considering charges against the search giant. Reuters reports that Italian prosecutors are investigating two executives from Google Italy, and the Minister of Education has already gone on the record approving their decision. The Minister, Giuseppe Fioroni, told an Italian news agency that the country could not afford to have two separate standards, one for print and television publications and another for the Internet. In the US, sites like Google Video, SoapBox, and YouTube are generally protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which grants “sa
