A proposito delle policy di Google, l’altra settimana ho partecipato a Parigi ad un Simposio internazionale sulla libertà di espressione
(http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31209&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html) e ho trovato molto interessanti gli interventi del direttore per le “Public Policy” di Google, Robert Boorstin.
Sulla questione della social responsability del settore privato Internet ha citato ad esempio un recente dilemma Youtube sulla questione Egiziana.
Boortsin ha raccontato come Google-Youtube abbia saputo dimostrare flessibilità/indulgenza nell’interpretazione delle regole Youtube che proibirebbero di postare video contenenti violenza. E sembra che sia stato fatto in nome dell’importanza che il mondo sapesse. Quasi una scelta editoriale?
Cito testuale dall’intervento di Boorstin:
"we had a Youtube channel out of Egypt and on that channel for three different times it showed beatings of prisoners [tenete conto che era mercoledì scorso quando le proteste erano agli inizi]. Now, according to our rules, you are not allowed to show violence on Youtube. So we removed that channel: three strikes and that person was out because of the nature of that video. We then heard from the dissident in Egypt that he was trying to show to the people outside exactly what was going on. And eventually we restored the videos, however with two things: 1) titles of what they were, 2) warnings that said if you are under the age beware of what you are going to watch.”
Molto interessante anche la risposta di Boorstin ad un attivista iraniano che aveva chiesto se esistesse una policy generale di Google viv-a-vis Iran ed altri governi dittatoriali:
"We take these things on a case by case basis...
We don’t operate in Iran. We will never keep servers in a country where they will come to us and ask information about private citizens...
In China for example we did not start with email system or micro-blogging system because we knew if we did under the Chinese law we had to put servers in China and end up in the same position as Yahoo did when they transfer responsability to a Chinese company and the government come to them, they turned over information about a dissident named Shi Tao, and now Tao is in jail for 10 years. We choose not to be put in that position.
When a government comes to us (even the US gov) they have to present a proper document to show that they are in the pursue of known criminal, a child pornographer etc, and we have an entire legal department to deal with these cases and to make sure we are cooperative when we need to be. And we don’t do what the telco companies do of turning over huge masses of data to the government without asking why and what the intended targets are."
buona giornata