Three top level executives from Google including George Reyes, who left Google in 2008, were held responsible for defying Italy’s privacy laws as they hosted content on YouTube video of kids tormenting another autistic kid.

According to Google, Italy has seriously harmed the freedom of expression and internet use. Even though the video was removed from YouTube within two hours after a complaint was filed by Italian police, the executives are being held responsible and face possible criminal proceedings.

Italian Police took two long months to notice the broadcast of the video online. Kids only got community service and were not put behind bars.

Google may file an application mentioning that it is not a content provider like newspapers, but a content enabler, which enables people to use it as a tool. About 20hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every single minute, hence it is a next to impossible thing to monitor every inch of a text, image or a video posted on it.

Juan Carlos de Martin, founder of the Nexa Center at Turin’s Polytechnic University told the New York Times that Italy was making “a deliberate effort to control the means of communication”. It is more or less what we call censorship in democratic countries of the world.