In Germany, Offensive Autocomplete Is No Laughing Matter 200
itwbennett writes "We've all had a chuckle over Google's autocomplete results for various search queries. But one German businessman had a less funny experience when he searched for his name on Google.de: The autocomplete suggested search terms where his name was tied with 'Scientology' and 'fraud' (in German, of course). This was back in 2010. In 2012, a German court ruled that the autocomplete terms did not infringe the plaintiff's privacy. Now, a year later, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe has overturned that ruling and ordered that Google remove offensive search suggestions when notified."
Hmm (Score:2)
You type:
Che
And it autofills with:
Cheeseburgers are delicious at McDonnalds®
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
The notion that McDonalds cheeseburgers are delicious is offensive to cheeseburgers everywhere.
So don't do this in Germany.
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Then you would be busted for false advertising
"Delicious" is an opinion, not a fact. It can't be false but it can be offensive, "offensive" is also an opinion. My own opinion is that the US goes too far with free speech and Germany does not go far enough.
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Yeah but just as you would be hard pressed to say that calling dogshit delicious wasn't misleading I seriously doubt you'd find even 100 people, excluding the stoners of course who think a 99c bag of generic cookies taste like pepperidge farm, that would say a Mickey D's cheeseburger is delicious. Adequate,affordable, even filling? Sure I'll buy that, but delicious? That word and Mickey D hasn't been on speaking terms since the late 70s.
In what country is "Mickey D" the colloquialism for Maccas?
Yes, same in other countries as well. (Score:3)
I seem to recall a case in Australia in the last year where Google was asked to remove offensive autocomplete terms, and didn't. And got sued. And lost.
It's because it's potentially defamatory. And just like I can't write "I saw Soulskill touch a dogs wiener" without potentially being sued, Google can't write that Herr Rolf is a fraud.
Re:Yes, same in other countries as well. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Defamation [thefreedictionary.com]: Any intentional false communication, either written or spoken, that harms a person's reputation ...
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That and Google is global.
What if I write a novel about a fraudulent scientologist businessman in my jurisdiction outside of Germany. Should I be penalised on sales of my book because of some asshat half way around the globe whose decided my novel sounds just like them and decides to have the autocomplete for my book removed?
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It's more like finishing someone's sentence for them. You say "Herr Rolf..." and I interject with "is a fraud".
In Europe the media has some responsibility to stand behind what it reports, and merely stating that "some people say" generally isn't enough to avoid libel without further elaboration. The same argument might apply to Google, i.e. "unknown others may have searched for..." is not a defence.
Potential for abuse... (Score:2)
All they would have to do was to point to some civil suit that they had against the people making the alleged false claims to 'prove' that they were fighting these baseless accusations and that the results should be removed from autocomplete
I can see th
Potential to fight abuse actually (Score:3)
This is not about search terms or search hits but just about autocomplete. It's not about hiding what you did, but about not slapping people looking for you or your company into the face with terms that come solely from other people searching for something (and maybe even not finding anything).
I mean, if I start to type your name into Google and Google suggests completions of "sells drugs to minors" just because people search for this in connection with your name (or someone else with the same name) you wou
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It weeds out completions reeking of sex, of anything negative about Google itself
I tried typing in "gmail su" and it suggested "gmail sucks". The adult material filter is correct but they don't censor stuff about themselves.
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""just like I can... write "I saw Soulskill touch a dogs wiener" ""
You saw it too? We should tell Google. And Germany.
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you really want the schnitzel to hit the fan, don't you?
(doch!)
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This is shooting the messenger. If RottenTomatoes says that a movie liked by 15% of reviewers, it's wrong to sue RottenTomatoes for reporting that. They're not saying the movie is bad. They're just stating the fact that 85% of reviewers didn't like the movie. Likewise, Google's autocomplete is just stating the
So autocomplete is supposed to read your mind? (Score:2)
How else would Autocomplete know what is offensive (or not) to you?
Since what constitutes "offensive" material varies wildly from person to person and also depending on the reason/motives people have to do any particular search, I doubt there is any way for autocomplete to comply.
I bet the plaintiff would consider my post defending autocomplete's cluenessless offensive.
Re:So autocomplete is supposed to read your mind? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's why the court required the "when notified" part. I don't agree, but at least it is feasible to implement.
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I have perl.
What's the API for the "notify Google of offensive autocomplete words"?
Re:So autocomplete is supposed to read your mind? (Score:4, Informative)
I have a dictionary online.
I have perl.
What's the API for the "notify Google of offensive autocomplete words"?
You don't get this. It's not about "offensive words" but about connecting YOU to things you have nothing to do with just by suggesting completions others have searched for.
So the API is: Type your name into the Google search field and if you get completions that would be libel if published as a headline with your name in it in a newspaper, notify Google as you would notify the newspaper. It's not about search hits or things said on other sites Google just indexed. It's about what Google publishes about YOUR name in the completions and your rights.
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You're the one who isn't getting it. I know where the "problem" originated. I'm pointing out that it is quite possible that some people will find the "autocomplete" suggestions offensive no matter what they are, and you might as well point this out to Google by notifying them about every possible word. The implication, which I'll spell out for the slow ones, is that I would write a perl script that would go through the online dictionary and submit every word as offensive.
You mean like any house owner in Germany could just request his house in Street View to be blanked out?
And of course you would need to point at a specific completion to your name to have it removed. Submitting a wordlist won't do. Even if you would do this it would just mean that your name wouldn't complete to anything. Hardly catastrophic.
And Google does this already anyway, just not for your name but for Google's name and for many porn-related things and who knows what else. People search for a lot of thi
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You mean like any house owner in Germany could just request his house in Street View to be blanked out?
The problem with the opt-out model is that you need to go around actively looking for stuff to block. Say Bing decides to do its own version of Street View, you then have to go notify them. Then Nokia releases their version, so another notification. Google then updates Street View and you have to re-submit.
Yeah, Google puts the images back the next time the Street View car goes around. I removed by car and house and a couple of years later they put it back with a new image. Didn't even bother to notify me,
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I think that's why the court required the "when notified" part. I don't agree, but at least it is feasible to implement.
Actually, I don't understand why Google just doesn't says thanks for reporting the problem, and take a small administrative fee for fixing it (just to cover the 10 min. of fact checking the fix would require to apply).
On topic, I see the problem that you can be sued for things that an automated system says... On the other hand "when notified" it really shouldn't be hard to fix, certainly not for a company with the resources such as Google. Furthermore, as these are every day tools for millions of people t
Re:So autocomplete is supposed to read your mind? (Score:4, Insightful)
If I start searching for "muslim teachings" Google will offer me "muslim terrorist" as soon as I type the first "t".
How long will that hold up if google is held liable for what it's autocomplete algorithm does.
German courts have their heads up their asses on this one. Autocomplete is nothing more than a basic statistical lookup. Germany is basically making the use of statistics a thought crime.
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Since what constitutes "offensive" material varies wildly from person to person and also depending on the reason/motives people have to do any particular search, I doubt there is any way for autocomplete to comply.
That's why we have a lot of objective*, if necessarily somewhat arbitrary, laws, and courts to mete out punishment when someone breaks them. It wouldn't really work if you had one party claiming they'd been wronged by their own standards and the other party just disagreeing and being done with it.
*that's the idea, anyway, but lawyers have to put food on the table somehow.
I bet the plaintiff would consider my post defending autocomplete's cluenessless offensive.
Offensive to him, perhaps - but he certainly wouldn't get very far claiming it was defamation, which is what he's claiming of autocomplete
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It's rather the opposite - you should mention it when relevant. What's verboten is to deny it, or use nazi symbols or slogans.
It seems to work somewhat too - while there still are individuals who preach hatred, there have been no organized atrocities against minorities in Germany after the war, unlike some other countries (better not named not to start a flamewar).
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Google is required to remove offensive autocompletes when notified
Why would anyone think there's a right to not be offended?
This is pretty much how copyright violations work.
Which I believe is garbage as well.
Seems fair (Score:3)
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What if one of your competitors became offended when auto complete results list yours higher and has your product removed all together? Is that far? Their feelings were hurt after all.
It's not about "hurt feelings". It's about libel, slander and defamation. If you would be able to sue a newspaper if it would print the terms as a headline you should be able to do the same with Google if it does this in the auto-completion. Hurt feelings or feeling offended aren't enough here. Don't believe /. titles, they're fluff and not news.
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Their feelings were hurt after all.
Defamation is a deliberate untruth spoken for the purpose of harming your reputation, it causes material harm by diminishing your capacity to earn, your feelings about it are irrelevant. You cannot accidentally defame someone, you cannot defame anyone if you or they do not have a reputation to protect. Google does not deliberately defame until it refuses to take down a defamatory association, if they leave it up then as the publisher with a reputation to protect they have deliberately endorsed .the defamato
In Germany, Who Determines "Offensive"? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm curious how German law determines what is an "offensive" search.
It doesn't. Germany has civil law, not common law.
Courts decide on a case-by-case basis whether the living law was broken, and a court has no authority to determine how it is to be interpreted, unlike in common law.
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Duuuh, your post is confusing. Since Germany has civil law, offenses have to be specifically defined in statutes. Which is the exact contrary of your "it doesn't" in the first part of you post. The second part is more accurate, but comes in almost perfect contradiction to the first.
Disclaimer: my German is rusty and IANAL, so I don't know how much leeway German courts have to apply established laws to individual cases, nor to which extent the notions of jurisprudence constante and doctrine apply in Germany.
Re:In Germany, Who Determines "Offensive"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Standards are pretty low. Calling an airline pilot a "bus driver", calling a store a "fraud" in a review (even if you obviously don't mean it literally), flipping someone off, or using someone's first name if you haven't been introduced are all criminal offenses with prison sentences of up to 1-2 years. True statements can also be criminal offenses.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beleidigung_(Deutschland) [wikipedia.org]
Flipping someone off behind the wheel generally costs upward of $4000 in penalties, a milder gesture around $1000. Just about anything negative you say to a policeman will get you charged and convicted in Germany.
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The examples in that Wikipedia article seem to be made up. They are unsourced and I couldn't find evidence of them being true in a brief Google search. I have a feeling some WP editor wanted to make a point that doesn't necessary reflect real life.
Do you have any evidence that such mild insults have resulted in large fines and/or jail time in Germany?
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Woodburning stoves are inappropriate in densely populated regions due to concentrated particulate emissions. With major demographic shifts towards higher-density urban conditions, excessive use of faggots and coal in ovens created rather dismal and unhealthy (no fun at all) conditions towards the late 19th century. Of course, even today, in more rural settings, you are still free to enjoy the fun of gathering around a few flaming fags on a cold winter evening.
Google does this already (Score:2)
I'm curious how German law determines what is an "offensive" search. If there's a legal definition, then maybe you can work something, but if "offensive" is determined by the "offended", then Google might as well disable the entire feature as anyone who doesn't like the autocomplete result for their name or term begin banning just about every potentially offensive combination out there.
Google avoids lots of completions already. You won't get completions about many things that Google deems to be offensive, like sexual terms (even porn actors) or negative things about Google. Google does this fairly arbitrarily with no documented rules or anything. It's not that adding something to a blacklist if someone requests this in connection with his name would be anything major to this. In fact it would just give you some rights that Google assumes for itself as a matter of course.
Note that in Germa
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Normally in cases like this it is just whatever the police officer of judge says is offensive/pornography/dangurous.
The problem with strict written definitions is that they would allow the average citizen to actually understand the legal system and know what is and is not legal; While at the same time preventing judges from just handing out whatever rulings they feel like. So of course the would be unacceptable.
When I search for Deutschland (Score:2)
Now that's offensive.
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It's all relative (Score:2)
What if (Score:2)
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They are supposed to know it by people with the name completing to something that borders on libel telling them about it.
This is getting ridiculus (Score:2)
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So tell Google not to customize completions for "Google". And to not filter out anything related to porn. And probably lots of other things Google will never tell you about.
Is Gay website (Score:2)
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Animal Trials (Score:2)
This is like medieval animal trials and nearly as ridiculous.
Algorithms are not sentient beings, nor are they created with malicious or slanderous intent. They are, perhaps, imperfect, but you'd have to be a complete moron to legislate or judicially mandate perfection (oh, wait...)
If history is any indication, I shudder at the thought that it could be centuries before have even remotely sane tech policy.
Free speech? (Score:2)
A lot of you are ignoring one important fact: Google is not a person.
Does a company even have a right to free speech?
Also, Google claims it's simply repeating what others typed into the search box, so it can hardly count as Google exercising free speech rights, correct?
Now if it was a private person we're talking about and they typed that text by themselves, they'd be in for slander. And that even in the US. Case closed.
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Guess they'll ask to remove Hitler and nazi suggestions.
Godwin's Law hit already. Geeze!
Re:Good to know (Score:4, Informative)
Germany already has many anti nazi laws in place. For example holocaust denial is verboten. Google has removed many neo nazi and old style nazi sites for Germany.
Re:Good to know (Score:4, Insightful)
freedom of speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you like, nor does it mean you get an audience.
Re:Good to know (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually it does, at least in terms of ideas. That's why where freedom of speech is limited in the states, it's not broad but very specific. The idea of fires in theaters, whether in fantasy or theories or reporting on actual fires is not forbidden in the US, just yelling it in cases which can cause a deadly stampede.
Germany otoh, has a free speech clause in it's constitution but has a whole host of illegal ideas, which is the exact opposite of free speech.
Re:Good to know (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yelling fire in a theater is a bad thing. It's the application of that to "show" that passing out a communist flier should be illegal because it's like yelling fire in a theater. Yelling fire in a theater is illegal, so not all speech is always protected. Now that we are in agreement that we don't have "free speech" in the USA. The follow up question is "where do we draw the line?"
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Yelling fire in a theater is a bad thing. It's the application of that to "show" that passing out a communist flier should be illegal because it's like yelling fire in a theater. Yelling fire in a theater is illegal, so not all speech is always protected. Now that we are in agreement that we don't have "free speech" in the USA. The follow up question is "where do we draw the line?"
Fire in a theater helps us understand this and leads to discussion on it.
Actually it doesn't help because more often than not it is misquoted. The actual quote is:
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.
The emphasis is mine. Falsely shouting fire in order to create a panic is illegal, or rather the person making the speech is accountable of the resulting harm. However, shouting fire in a crowded movie that is actually on fire is not illegal, as most reasonable people would agree that there is a moral responsibility to letting others know of imminent danger.
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Or maybe it could be said that yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater objectively causes risk of harm due to panic, but that it can be deemed as necessary if there actually is a fire.
You know, just like some people have a legal pass for stabbing you with sharp objects under some circumstances.
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Actually, Germany has not exactly a "freedom of speach" clause in the constitution. Freedom of speach is not even something actually translateable to German (perhaps Redefreiheit?). After all "freedom of speach" taken literally is quite a strange concept, much like "freedom to move".
What Germany has are freedom of opinion, freedom of art, freedom of press and some other things.
If you translate "freedom of speach" to German and then back what you get is "freedom of opinion", which is the freedom to have an o
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This is actually very interesting if true. However, I am curious whether all freedom of opinion is actually protected in Germany. Specifically, I was under the impression that claiming facts about nazis was ok, as in holocaust museums etc., but claiming the opinion that nazis were awesome and should be emulated is what is not allowed.
Disclaimer, I hold the opinion that all nazis should go burn in a fire, and the 'nazis were awesome' comment is purely 100% just playing devil's advocate. Just to make sure we'
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There is little gain in sitting around debating or discussing events from 70+ years ago that have been beaten to death worse than a dead horse.
I would like a law outlawing atheists and Christians from discussing evolution while relating it to religion. It is boring as hell, goes nowhere interesting and you hear the worst possible opinions.
Re:Good to know (Score:5, Insightful)
You are correct in that the nature of free speech limitations can be different in the US vs. Germany. However, the limitations to free speech in the US are actually more broad rather than more specific. In the US, limitations are only based on broad categories such as libel, rather than making specific ideas illegal. For example, I can not legally publicly say that you enjoy frequent coitus with your mother. If false, it is libel/slander, and if true, a violation of your right to privacy (assuming you consider dissemination of such information damaging). But publicly proclaiming you to be a motherfscker is illegal not because statements regarding maternal copulation are explicitly outlawed, but because they fall under a restricted category.
OTOH, the topic of TFA is regarding a category, not a specific idea, specifically speech that violates ones right to privacy. As such, it is conceivable that a US court could make the same ruling that the German court did in this case.
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As for Germany, I expect their limits on particular forms of speech have a little something to do with them underpinning and justifying the systematic slaughter of millions of people. They're probably just a tad sensitive to people perpetuating the same ideas which arguably are malicious slander against an entire culture. Racist attacks and ne
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Re:Good to know (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't you know, "freedom" is whatever USA has at any given moment? As the liberties change, the definition of freedom changes with it. This is how we can say "land of the free" without choking on the words.
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[I]n terms of content, you can say whatever you damn well please. Any government that doesn't recognize that doesn't recognize freedom of speech.
No.... no you can't. There are things like official secrets. There are things like libel (which although not criminal in itself _is_ backed up by the criminal system - if you don't pay, you go to jail).
There are things like AACS [wikipedia.org] and DeCSS [wikipedia.org], which made numbers illegal. Just because people get away with it all the time, does not make it not illegal. People have
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Exactly. Once more, this German court has confirmed that Germany has no freedom of speech.
Your signature is wrong. You _are_ a complete idiot.
Re:Good to know (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're referring to Mein Kampf, you're mistaken. Publishing excerpts of it is prosecuted in civil courts, but only because the Bavarian state claims the copyright. When Hitler killed himself, his estate went to the state, including the publishing rights of that book. The copyright is about to expire after which everybody will be free to print copies in Germany.
On the other hand, distribution and use of some symbols commonly associated with Nazi ideology is a prohibited by the law. If and how much freedom of speech is restricted by these laws is a matter of debate. Certainly, the US is more permissive in this regard, but one should not forget that these laws grew out of denazification regulations instituted by the Allied occupation forces after World War 2.
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The general complaint is still true: in Germany (and most other EU countries), the freedom of speech is generally limited to what the majority finds acceptable.
That is not true at all. One can claim the same about the US and just be as correct as that.
In the U.S. the opposite is true. For example, the idiots of the Westboro Baptist Church can say and protest as much as they want, even though 99.999% of the U.S. population absolutely hates them (that includes me). Whould they have lived in Germany, they would have been in jail a long time ago.
Can you name me a law that would have put them in jail? I might be missing what they do, but if they only put those pesky "God hates fags" signs, then I see nothing applicable.
But I will defend their freedom to express themselves
Please, stop that pathetic slogan. You are not defending their freedom. You are defending your misunderstanding of the world.
, in that regard (note the 'in that regard', I'm sure other things are better in .de).
Like in Germany you have a codified freedom of opinion. An matter of opinion can not be an insult and cannot otherwise
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Can you name me a law that would have put them in jail? I might be missing what they do, but if they only put those pesky "God hates fags" signs, then I see nothing applicable.
here you go.
Please, stop that pathetic slogan. You are not defending their freedom. You are defending your misunderstanding of the world.
On the contrary. As soon as those idiots from the WBC are being silenced, someone else will be next. This is the same mechanism that is used for other methods of government surveillance. It starts out as anti-terrorism or anti-child pornography, but will soon be used for petty crimes and regular unwarranted searches.
Like in Germany you have a codified freedom of opinion. An matter of opinion can not be an insult and cannot otherwise be against any law (as freedom of opinion tops any other law). From what wikipedia claims with all your "freedom of speach" you do not even have that in the US.
German law differs a lot from U.S. law. German law is eventually governed by the European Convention on Human Rights. This, in turn, provides an exception for "protection of morals".
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Come on, guys! We're supposed to defend human dignity to the point of restricting freedom of speech and you're supposed to defe
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Please note the first two will get you in trouble in the US well
Please, there is no law against "insulting" somebody in the US. Comedians make their living at it.
You can curse as you want in TV, you can say shit, you can show nipples
You've got us there, but these days broadcast TV is not nearly as significant as it used to be. There's plenty of places to get your boobs or swears on television or elsewhere.
you can talk bad of the church if you want to. Try that in america and see how you literally can cried down (not from the law but from many part of society). Chances are high a quite number of disturbed people will demand you get killed.
People bad-mouth the "church" all the time, and here I mean religion in general because there is no singular "church" in the United States. There are no lynch mobs out for these people. One Muslim idiot made some threats against the South
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Well, on the other hand there is no right to life in the USA. Personally I think it is far worse - what good is freedom of speech if you are dead, but surely YMMV.
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What suggestions? The German people were on vacation from 1939 to 1945.
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That Freedom of speech in Germany is dead. Mental note...
Slander is excepted from free speech in a lot of places. Say your name is "Bob Somelastname" and when you type "Bob Somelastname" into google it autosuggests 'pedophile', are you saying you should have no recourse and that should stay up forever? The court isn't saying google is liable for damages, they're just saying they have to remove the particular suggestions when notified.
Of course Google can't investigate every complaint that comes in, so what this could mean is the German Google won't have slanderou
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That Freedom of speech in Germany is dead. Mental note...
Slander is excepted from free speech in a lot of places. Say your name is "Bob Somelastname" and when you type "Bob Somelastname" into google it autosuggests 'pedophile', are you saying you should have no recourse and that should stay up forever?
If a lot of people are entering the search query "Bob Somelastname pedophile" then Google autocomplete will add the word "pedophile" whenever someone types "Bob Somelastname". Google is not trying to be offensive, its just an algorithm that is based on the most common searches. This is simply how it is supposed to work.
People really need to shut the fuck up and stop being "offended" by every little thing.
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I never claimed it wasn't an algorithm (though I don't know if it's actually that simple) but that doesn't change the fact that people googling that name aren't going to get a pretty ugly suggestion about you.
Are you really telling me you wouldn't get a bit offended if Google autocompleted pedophile onto your name?
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Are you really telling me you wouldn't get a bit offended if Google autocompleted pedophile onto your name?
I am offended by lots of things I read and hear everyday. That does not justify censorship. There is no "right to not be offended."
Re:Good to know (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you really telling me you wouldn't get a bit offended if Google autocompleted pedophile onto your name?
I am offended by lots of things I read and hear everyday. That does not justify censorship. There is no "right to not be offended."
I was originally talking slander, the person who replied to me said they wouldn't be offended (which I found unlikely), but the original complaint was and still is about slander.
If someone googles your name and they see 'pedophile' come up, they're going to get a strong negative impression of you (especially if it's a somewhat unique name). If your livelihood or reputation is strongly tied to what people see when they look for you online that can have pretty drastic consequences and I'd say that's potentially slanderous.
The fix, telling Google, 'pedophile' and 'fraud' are both really ugly terms and I don't want them suggested with my name since I'm neither, sets a potentially pad precedent but it's particularly damaging to Google.
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That does not justify censorship.
I think you're stretching the moral point of free speech considerably.
This is not restricting anything produced by a human, it's restricting the output of a non sentient machine. I am a ver yardent supporter of freedom of speech, but I do not see how it extends to the ramblings of a machine (distinct of course from the mechanically translated ramblings of a _person_).
There is no "right to not be offended."
There is a right not to be slandered.
Tacking "pedo" onto someones na
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Accountability comes with that.
You see don't Google auto-completing Sergey Brin's name and saying "Did you mean dog rapist?" If it did, don't you think Google would change it ASAP?
Google's marketshare is too large and the use of its services is too widespread to just let some guy's reputation be hurt by offensive autocompletes.
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Work for the RIAA?
Re:Good to know (Score:5, Informative)
If a lot of people are entering the search query "Bob Somelastname pedophile" then Google autocomplete will add the word "pedophile" whenever someone types "Bob Somelastname". Google is not trying to be offensive, its just an algorithm that is based on the most common searches.
Sorry, but no. Google already filters out LOTS of things, among them many words related to porn and many things Google doesn't like to see connected to its name if you start to type "Google". Nobody knows what else they filter here. Basically Google is redacting its auto-completion heavily already.
If this were indeed a plain algorithm I would tend to agree with you. But it isn't.
Personality rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Freedom of speech is not dead in Germany. The constitution just put a different (higher) weight on personality rights.
In this case, googleing the name "Bettina Wulff" of the first lady would autocomplete to things like "escort" and "prostitute", because some people wrongfully tried to make a past life as a prostitute stick to her public image (which has been shown is just nonsense).
Now, I would agree that it is perfectly reasonable to put a higher weight on the right of free speech. But personality rights, and the right to be protected from libel are also important. Those are two legally protected values that have to be carefully balanced.
Re:Personality rights (Score:5, Funny)
In this case, googleing the name "Bettina Wulff" of the first lady would autocomplete to things like "escort" and "prostitute",
Hmmm . . . when I enter "Bettina Wulff" into amazon.de, it suggests to me:
Kunden, die Betinna Wulff gekauft haben, kauften auch: . . .
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Poor Rick Santorum, he can't even claim his name doesn't mean anal leakage because, well, it does.
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It's slightly different. We never actually had that to begin with. Or rather what is called freedeom of speech is defined as "the freedom of opinion and the right to freely express it as such"
This wording excludes libel and slander right from the start (which aren't protected speech in the US either if I remember right)
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Libel and slander are civil matters in the US; in Germany, they are criminal matters and potentially carry jail terms. Germany also has jail terms (up to three years) for insulting religions.
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Well, when you can be put in prison for three years just for saying words of praise about Adolf Hitler, I don't exactly think they had freedom of speech to begin with. It's not the United States, you know... and even here there are exceptions.
Re:Good to know - Steve Hughes - What's wrong wit (Score:3)
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b48_1305790944 [liveleak.com]
German's may not want to watch, in fear of being offended.
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Is there an empirical study of the probability of any autocomplete being offensitve in some language?
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess 'no,' based on the simple observation that "being offensive" is purely subjective, and thus diametrically opposed to empirical data.
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Alright, well, maybe not diametrically opposed - I suppose you could create a dataset based on the opinions of what all speakers of a particular language consider offensive, cull the list down to just the terms that all surveyed name as offensive, then compare it against a list of existing autocompletion terms... But damn, what a stupid waste of fucking time that would be!
A better plan: Let's all join together and decide, conclusively, that:
A) No one has a right to be offended, and
B) No harm == no foul
Seems
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1) German court cannot 'force' Google to do anything of the sort.
Sure they can, because google does business in Germany. Of course they could "take their ball and go home", but who'd want to stop being the dominant online advertiser in a $4Tn economy? That would be like abandoning California, Texas and New Your simultaneously.