Last but not least: Youtube's freedom of expression takes a vacation in Brazil
A court in Brazil has ordered the arrest of the country's highest-ranking Google manager. The reason was a dispute over a video on the internet platform YouTube.
In a video, a candidate for the mayoral election in the city of Campo Grande is denigrated in two videos on YouTube. The Google subsidiary YouTube did not remove the video. This was stated by the court on Tuesday, according to SDA. This violates Brazilian law. As Google is not responsible for the content of the video platform, the company has lodged an appeal. The appeal was rejected.
However, this is not the first time that Google has been cited in court for insulting YouTube. Ten days ago, an electoral court in the north-eastern state of Paraiba handed down a similar verdict against Google director Edmundo Balthazar, according to SDA. He had refused to block a video in which a mayoral candidate was referred to as a "donkey". Google appealed and was upheld.
According to the SDA, the first round of local elections will take place in more than 5,000 Brazilian cities on October 7. Until then, the candidates should probably tell themselves: "Freedom of expression is when you laugh anyway". Because "hasta la vista, Google" has apparently not had much effect on the company so far - not even in Portuguese.
