Brazil Judge Orders Arrest of Google President of Operations over Video Removal Request

In another international case of countries attempting to hold companies responsible for “offensive” content hosted by one of their sites, a Brazilian judge has actually ordered the arrest ...
Brazil Judge Orders Arrest of Google President of Operations over Video Removal Request
Written by Josh Wolford

In another international case of countries attempting to hold companies responsible for “offensive” content hosted by one of their sites, a Brazilian judge has actually ordered the arrest of one Google employee.

On Monday, Judge Flavio Peren ordered the arrest of Google’s President of Operations in the country, Fabio Jose Silva Coelho. The order came after the failure of Google to remove a couple of YouTube videos that contained “disparaging remarks” about a mayoral candidate in the city of Campo Grande. Although the arrest order has been given, police say they’ve yet to receive any such orders, according to the Washington Post.

This isn’t the first time that Google has been involved in content removal disputes in Brazil, with some previous scuffles involving Google-owned Orkut. Earlier this year, Google was sued over “offensive content” posted by users on the older social networking site.

“Government requests for content removal are high in Brazil relative to other countries partly because of the popularity of our social networking website, orkut,” says Google in their 2011 Transparency Report.

Last year, Google received 418 separate content removal request from the Brazilian government which covered 1,246 individual items. Google says that they fully or partially complied with just over 60% of those requests. The number of YouTube videos that Brazil requested removal due to “defamation” was 217.

Google has said that they won’t appeal the ruling, as they aren’t responsible for the defamatory content.

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