A teen with Down’s syndrome was seen bullied in a video on Google for which the Google executives could face jail.

The Google executives are accused by an Italian prosecutor for defaming a person and also failing to exercise the control over the personal data.

However the case was strongly denounced by the Google saying it was “a direct attack on a free, open internet”. The case is said to be heard in Milan court which stems from a complaint from the boy’s father and Italian group who support the Down’s syndrome called Vivi down.

The video on Google showed four male high school students in the Italian city of Turin humiliating the boy with Down’s syndrome. The video remained on the site for 2 months.

The prosecutors present a view that safeguarding fundamental rights should take higher priority than his its own business. The sources said that the prosecutors are seeking a jail sentence ranging between 6 to 12 months and maximum sentence a person can get in the defamation and harm to private life case is three years in prison.

Google’s spokesperson said that it would however defend its employees and that it did not do anything that was outside the law.

The spokesperson said “This prosecution is akin to prosecuting mail service employees for hate speech letters sent in the post”.

“Seeking to hold neutral platforms liable for content posted on them is a direct attack on a free, open internet and could spell the end of Web 2.0 in Italy”.

Sources said that the hearing is said to be on 16 th of December. The defendants are David Drummond the senior vice-president and George De Los Reyes chief legal officer of Google, the senior product marketing manager Arvind Desikan, and the Global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer.

(Courtesy : AFP)