Family's legal battle over YouTube's role in Paris terror murders is paused A lawsuit accusing YouTube of playing a key role in the November 2015 Paris terror attacks has been all but thrown out of court. Northern California District Judge Donna Ryu ruled [PDF] this week that the Mountain View ads broker could not be held liable for killings apparently inspired by terror bastards' propaganda videos on …
The problem any content hosting platform has is determining what they should take down for very narrow and solid reasons (like outright copyright infringement). To require them to judge the content will lead them into a no-win situation as they get sued continuously by aggrieved parties who had their content removed. This is not because monitoring would necessarily be targeting one group or another but because major mistakes will be made.
Another problem is the world wide reach of the web. This begs the question of whose laws and mores should be used. This would lead to another set of lawsuits trying to sort out jurisdiction.
I'm not surprised that dear old dad decided to sue, here in "The land of the free and the home of the litigious."
Because the ToS say this is where they should be sued.
14. General
You agree that: (i) the Service shall be deemed solely based in California; and (ii) the Service shall be deemed a passive website that does not give rise to personal jurisdiction over YouTube, either specific or general, in jurisdictions other than California. You agree that the laws of California, excluding California’s choice of law rules, will apply to these Terms of Service. In addition, for any dispute arising out of or related to the Service, the parties consent to personal jurisdiction in, and exclusive venue of, the courts in Santa Clara County, California.
The family lives in California so that makes California pretty much the only choice. The victim was studying abroad for a year in Paris.
However I think for something like this citing terms of service is barking up the wrong tree. There are plenty of laws in other countries that Google has to follow or get whacked with a fine. Most western European countries have hate speech laws of one form or another.
As you indicate however, these are the terms of service - if YouTube are to be sued in relation to the service provided to a recipient, said recipient would be bound by the aforementioned terms.
In this case however, the victims are not bound by YouTube's terms of service because their complaint is not in relation to service rendered to them - hence they are not committed to the agreement expressed within the terms.
@ Diogenes
I'm not surprised that dear old dad decided to sue comma here in "The land of the free and the home of the litigious."
Perhaps I should have bolded that comma which you (and others) have apparently overlooked.
Or perhaps, used the "Joke Alert" icon.
Or maybe <sarcasm> </sarcasm> tags.
I haven't actually seen a film clip of dear old dad saying "It's not about the money" but I'll bet there's one out there.
Here in "The land of the free and the home of the litigious", it is standard operating procedure to file a lawsuit in the aftermath of any tragedy, large or small.
You never sue the perpetrator, they're dead, broke, or both.
Instead, you find out any product or service he used in planning or committing his act and sue the manufacturer, provider, or operator of that product or service. They'll have money, and maybe, just maybe, a sympathetic court will rule in your favor.
Then you'll have your "Justice".
Google is a private organization and can suppress any content, data, or links, for any reason it thinks suitable, or no reason at all, without a legal need to answer to anyone but its directors and shareholders. They choose, as would those of us in the US who believe in freedom of speech in its general sense, to suppress as little as possible and oppose those who would suppress speech they do not like on the basis that their judgment should be granted precedence over that of others.
But wait: they can't do that even if their ranking algorithm would do it automatically; it would be unfair. They must not only not suppress shopping comparison web sites, but must (at least in some markets) promote them to the first display page to ensure that those who mostly don't want to see them must do so anyhow.
Maybe they would be better off suing George Bush II who, destabilised the whole region by destroying the government of Iraq for no good reason, leading to the rise of ISIS and the whole "war on terror" nonsense.
Not that I think they would succeed there either, but at least we might see if Mr. Bush can justify his actions.
OK not to side with George Dubya or anything, but destroying the government of Iraq for no good reason is going bit far. I think the Kurds and the Shias and the numerous atrocities they suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein (including chemical weapon attacks) would say there was some pretty good reasons.
Dismantling the entire military and bureaucracy of Iraq WAS what caused the destabilisation. Followed by the fact that if George had kept a tighter rein on the new Shia led government that took over from the old Sunni led government and stopped them taking revenge on the Sunni Population for the past deeds of Hussein and his cronies, then IS wouldnt have had a fertile ground to grow out of...
@ iglethal
I tried and failed to use hyperbole to make my point, and you are right, the destruction of the Iraqi government was what caused the mess we see now, but don't forget, Mr. Bush lied like a gentleman whose trousers were on fire about his reasons for going to war, and never mentioned the repression of minorities at all.
As far as I am concerned he should have invaded Saudi Arabia if wanted to avenge 9/11.
... except the actual terrists. Why? Simple: because you can't sue them to try and get your greedy hands on a large sum of money.
And lets also not stop to think about the people who actual suffered from all this (you know, the people living in France who's relatives got involved?) because... yah, who cares about them, right? I mean, these nutjobs live in the US and those "dudes" live in France out of all countries so obviously the US "victims" are far more important than those "weird French people", right?
Now, I know not every American behaves in this manner and I also realize like no other than there are plenty of "Yankies" (no sneer!) who also can't stand idiocy like this. I really do.
But sometimes I can't help wonder if they shouldn't apply laws which forbid certain US people to try and get involved over actual issues which hurt actual people. Because my heart can only go out to those families who get reminded and re-introduced once more to all the horrors of having to lose their loved ones.
And all courtesy of some <self-censored> nutjob which thinks it's a good idea to try and use real problems to satisfy their own greedy and selfish ambitions.
Disgusting.
Are people unable to read and comprehend articles on this site?
What is it? You read the first few lines, see USA and Google then mash the keyboard while you mouth froths at the edges?
IT'S RIGHT THERE IN THE BLOODY SUB-HEADING AND IN THE TEXT!
"Judge gives victim's relatives two weeks to come up with new claims or give up"
"The family of Paris attack victim Nohemi Gonzalez filed suit against "
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