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Comment by sclarisse | Hacker News Reader

As an American who enjoys America’s freedom of speech, I find it distressing that the largest companies, who play a real role in the distribution of that speech, are so very large and global that they are beholden to the law of other jurisdictions, who then afflict US residents with their extraterritorial censorship.

We need many viable not-Googles, instead of just one behemoth.

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Falsely accusing somebody of a criminal act is defamation per se in the US.

I'm unsure if a US court would agree that search results would constitute defamation as well, but it certainly seems possible, especially if the search query was entirely neutral (i.e. just looking up this victim's name).

“Restoring a link to content Google had indexed which called someone a pedophile” is a lot different than the content itself and was just fined $500k. That’s a lot of liability for a link. That means any time someone asks for content to be taken down there’s a lot of risk in saying No.

The censors will win. The reputation management firms hired by billionaires will win. They will silence criticism, even true criticism. Even, especially, when they are in fact pedophiles, they will win a fight with Google, demand the Google AI take down all content that suggests they are anything but saints.

This world is coming. It may be here within a decade or two. HN used to be a place where people thought this was a bad thing.

While freedom of speech is protected in the United States, it is not an absolute right, and defamation laws are an example of a legal restriction on speech that is permissible under the First Amendment. Defamation laws are common amongst most democracies that enjoy some level of free speech.

This is an action that applies to Google, not the defamer, using Quebec law, where American law would not find liability. This fine included liability for posts that were visible in America, invisible in Quebec. The fact libel law exists in America generally is true but minimally informative and not really germane.

The Quebec court disagrees. Google is defaming the plaintif, and doing so in a global manner. Both in their ranking that information as important and additionally in refusing to remove that information when requested.

I'm really glad that American companies can't just operate with impunity in other countries. Google and other US multinationals SHOULD be bound by the superset of laws for all of the countries they operate in. If they can't accept those laws, for example in the case of authoritarian states, then they shouldn't be operating in those markets at all.

And indeed as I have said: A reason this is a big problem is that we have like 1.5 competitors out there (for search: Google, Bing) and they’re all trying to sell ads into all the jurisdictions ever. As a result all of us who have nothing else to use find we are practically limited by the set-intersection of all the extraterritorially enforced liberties in the world. Our set of liberties is getting smaller.

I will be upset at that even if today it’s a marginally better reason than most.

Google has offices and employees in Canada, have .ca domains, sell customers good, etc. You don't think they should be subject to local laws? Is the reciprocal? Should Chinese company operating is the US be only subject to Chinese laws?

Google has offices and operates out of Québec. https://careers.google.com/locations/montreal/

Are you implying that calling someone a pedophile is freedom of speech?

Of course it is.

You see all those people charged with defamation for calling GWB a murderer?

You mean for the deaths of over 7,000 Iraqi civilians by US armed forces because of the invasion he started on false pretenses? Or are you thinking more about the roughly 300,000 Iraqis who died in that conflict? Or maybe you're thinking about 100+ Iraqis who died while in US detention centers, several of which resulted in actual homicide charges? Or perhaps you are deeply concerned about the distinction between murder and torture authorized by GWB?

You missed the point. Were you over-caffeinated or something?

I was using an example of saying someone is a "murderer" as free speech. Many people have called GWB a murderer and they are allowed to - because of freedom of speech.

Why would calling someone a pedophile vs a murder not be covered by the same freedom? Why am I engaging with you? Don't answer that, this is pointless.

“JK Rowling critic forced to publicly apologize for calling her a Nazi after lawsuit threat. Self-professed 'drag queen' and 'jazz hands enthusiast' apologized to JK Rowling 'for causing potential upset'”

Can’t wait for the rich to shop around to the best defamation venue and take down all the Google links with a $500k-ish threat each.

What does this have to do with my initial question? I'm not arguing that the links should've been taken down.

I was not asking if calling someone a pedophile is freedom of speech under the current legislation of the US, but more on the philosophical idea of freedom of speech.

The facts about what GWB did are not really debated. Whether it counts as murder is a subjective opinion.

As an American who used to enjoy the freedom of speech 20 years ago and whose freedom of speech has been greatly eroded by (among others) the big tech I strongly support this verdict.

If Google provides a neutral search it should not be responsible for what the found search results say. If those are illegal, courts should go after the author.

But should Google search suppress and promote specific viewpoints beyond clearly neutral pagerank-style search, their top links become promotions. And Google can be held liable for what those show. My 2c, IANAL.

Justice Azimuddin Hussain also ordered the company to remove links to the post from its search results in Quebec

search results in Quebec

in Quebec

Freedom applies to both parties. Your freedom to swing your fist ends where another's nose begins. Similarly, your freedom to baselessly disparage and slander has similar restrictions, because the other person has the freedom against such attacks.

Libel is very restricted in the United States as well. Indeed, the whole "section 230" argument that keeps getting revived deals specifically with this topic (paradoxically by the "freedom" party), so clearly your "freedom" isn't quite as absolute as you imagine it is.

Further, Google was ordered to restrict the content in Quebec, and the fine they are paying is a tiny fraction of the money they make in Canada, which is a country where they have offices and significant business. I see zero reason why you decided to make this American centric.

Can I call you a paedophile here then?

Maybe suggest that anybody who took the time to view your post history would clearly see this?

I'd like to stress I'm not accusing you of anything - and wouldn't want to be responsible for the conclusions others might arrive at.

If you just outright called him a pedophile and I saw your post accusing him of it, I would assume you're just an idiot.

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