A Jewish man in Spain has filed a lawsuit against Google regarding the search engine’s apparent failure to censor racist content after a takedown notice was filed by his attorney.
He filed the lawsuit with assistance from the Lawfare Project, a nonprofit human-rights and civil-rights litigation and advocacy group.
The plaintiff discovered the material cited in the lawsuit after conducting a Google search in Spanish using the search terms “Holocaust” and “truth.” The results included defamation against Jews, labeling them as “degenerate” and the “embodiment of evil.”
The results in question belong to a Nazi website with a significant following across the Spanish-speaking world—not only in Spain, but also South America. The website makes its connections to the infamous U.S. alt-right website, The Daily Stormer, giving details on how to access it.
“The claimant is seeking to block such material from being promoted by Google in its search results on the basis of both Spanish law and Supreme Court precedents, under which search engines are only exempted from liability if they block illegal content soon after receiving a complaint,” said Brooke Goldstein, executive director of the Lawfare Project. “The plaintiff gave Google a simple choice—stop promoting vicious racism or face a lawsuit. Content that libels Jews and promotes hatred and violence against them has no place in the 21st century.”
Previously, the plaintiff had, advised by the Lawfare Project, succeeded in removing content from websites with radical material about the Holocaust’s victims.
The Lawfare Project’s Spanish counsel previously sent a complaint to Google over illegal material, warning that it was not only offensive and abusive, but also defamatory to Jewish people. Counsel demanded that the content be barred from the search engine.
However, reported the Lawfare Project, “no action was taken by Google, resulting in the filing of a libel lawsuit, as the nature of the content is libelous against Jews.”
