问答题 (59) Three executives were convicted Wednesday of violating Italian privacy laws in a ruling that the company denounced as an "astonishing" attack at freedom of expression on the Internet.
(60) The case involves online videos showing an autistic boy being bullied with byclassmates in Turin, which were posted in 2006 on Video, an online video-sharing service that the company ran before its acquisition of YouTube.
(61) Prosecutors charred that the videos violated Italian personal private protections.
(62) They said the clips were removing only after complaints from Vivi Down, an Italian organization representing people with Down syndrome. whose name was mentioned in the videos.
(63) "We are definitely satisfied that someone has to take responsibility for this violating of privacy," said Guido Camera, a lawyer for Vivi Down.
(64) The company said it planed to appeal, warned that the verdicts raised serious questions about the viability of user-generated content platforms like YouTube in Italy and potentially elsewhere in Europe.
(65) "If company employee like me can be held criminally liable for any video on a hosting platform, (66) when they had absolute nothing to do with the video in question, (67)then our liability is limited," said one of the three executives, Peter Fleischer, the company"s chief privacy counsel.
(68) "The decision today therefore raises broader questions as the continued operation of many lnternet platforms that are the essential foundations of freedom of expression in the digital age," he said in a statement.
Video-sharing services like Video and YouTube generally rely on users to notify them of potentially problematic content, which is then taken down if it violates the terms of service.