Classification and Censorship, Filtering

· User-generated content site subject to censorship by advertising withdrawal of the search/ad monopoly: TV Tropes

o Samzenpus, ‘Your Rights Online: TV Tropes Self-Censoring Under Google Pressure’ (7 November 2010) Slashdot <http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/11/07/2348259/TV-Tropes-Self-Censoring-Under-Google-Pressure> at 8 November 2010:

"The popular wiki TV Tropes, a site dedicated to the discussion of various tropes, clichés and other common devices in fiction has suddenly decided to put various of its pages behind a 'possibly family-unsafe' content warning, apparently due to pressure by Google withdrawing its ads.

What puzzles me most is the content that is put behind this warning. TV Tropes features no explicit sexual content, and no explicit violence. It does of course discuss these things, as is its remit, but without actual explicit depictions. In fact, something as relatively innocuous as children being raised by two females, whatever the reason are put behind the content warning, even if the page itself doesn't take a stand on the issue, merely satisfying itself by describing the occurrence of this in fiction."

o ‘Administrivia: The Situation’ (4 November 2010), TVTropes.org <http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TheSituation?from=Main.TheGoogleIncident> at 5 November 2010.

o QUESTION: If a company has monopolized a service (eg provision of search-based ads) enough to be able to censor the content of websites that they don’t own, by withdrawing the service, is this extrajudicial punishment? What does it mean for freedom of expression/democracy?

o QUESTION: Which perspective is most sustainable?
Google has requirements for the use of AdSense (its advertising platform). TV Tropes didn't follow these, and when someone filed a complaint, a Google employee did a manual check of the TV Tropes site. They found it was in breach of the AdSense Terms of Service and disabled the ad service. Is this really pressuring TV Tropes to have a certain type of content? Or is it no different than someone being removed from a mailing list for breaking one of the rules (for example spamming the list)?

TV Tropes has the option of going to another ad service which they choose not to; they instead choose to self-censor to keep Google AdWords.

Offensive material/hate speech/discrimination? Censorship? Content regulation?

· Individuals’ use of blogs to spread hate speech and incite discrimination. Who is responsible – the blogger or the blogging service (in this case, blogger.com)?

o Gluyas v Google Inc (Anti-Discrimination) [2010] VCAT 540

On Austlii: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VCAT/2010/540.html

§ Google’s blogger.com content policy includes: “users may not publish material that promotes hate towards groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity.”

§ The court held: “Where the involvement of the person such as Google is purely passive, providing a platform on the internet without encouraging offensive material, but merely failing to take it down, it is a different matter. This was the conclusion reached by Eady J in Metropolitan International Schools Ltd v Design Technica Corporation & Others [2009] EWHC 1765 (QB) with respect to Google, as the operator of a search engine.

Google’s role in the present [case] as the provider of the site or the blog is significantly different [to their role as the operator of a search engine], but nevertheless in my view ultimately a relatively passive one and one which could not see it [Google] regarded as having published the offending material in Victoria. [at para 37]

§ (in plain English: like the iiNet case where the ISPs were held not to be ‘authorising’ the copyright infringements committed by their clients over BitTorrent, Google here is held not be the ‘publisher’ of the offensive material, even though they provided the blogging service and did not take the blog down at the request of Gluyas).