Google fined for 'paedophile' libel against priest

Nutty Leftist Brazil again:

"GOOGLE has been fined $US8500 in Brazil after an anonymous internet user posted defamatory messages on one of its sites against a priest, calling him a "paedophile".

A court in the state of Minas Gerais ruled in favour of the 54-year-old priest, identified by his initials J.R., after rejecting Google's argument that it was not responsible for what users posted on its Orkut social networking site.

The verdict upheld a lower court's judgment made after the priest sued for defamation in 2008 over the post, which called him "the paedophile ... the thief who has a lover", according to the O Globo daily.

"By making space available on virtual networking sites, in which users can post any type of message without any checks beforehand, with offensive and injurious content, and, in many cases, of unknown origin, (Google) assumes the risk of causing damage" to other people, judge Alvimar de Avila said.

Google's Orkut is a hugely popular networking site in Brazil,

Source

The irony is that Google (who host this blog) is itself an energetic banner of what it considers hate speech. I am rather surprised that many of the comments on this blog have not brought their wrath down on my head so far. But I will continue to allow similar comments as long as I can. More moderation from some commenters here might help, though.