Nazi ideology no longer to appear in Google search results in Spain
Lawfare Project filed several take-down notices against racism, antisemitism
Some of the most defamatory content will no longer appear in Spain’s Google search results, including material promoting Nazi ideology and denying the Holocaust, according to the Lawfare Project.
The Lawfare Project, representing a group of Spanish Jews, filed several take-down notices with Google LLC after Jews identified content in Google search results that included extreme and defamatory racism against the Jewish people. Google’s lawyers examined the complaints and, subsequently, various examples of antisemitic content identified in the notices are now blocked from appearing in Google searches in Spain, the advocacy group explained in a release.
Articles published by the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website promoting extreme racism against Jews and others, will now not appear in results, among other examples.
To the best knowledge of the parties involved, this is the first time that Google has blocked illegal content against the Jewish people based on defamation complaints. The understanding with the Internet giant allows for the blocking of specific content from its search engine by filing detailed blocking notices, which the Lawfare Project said marks a turning point in the company’s approach to violent and defamatory antisemitic content.
The Lawfare Project is “a global network of legal professionals that... [is] defending the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and pro-Israel community, and fighting discrimination wherever we see it,” according to its website.
“For many, the road to antisemitic radicalization is through an online search result,” explained Lawfare Project founder and executive director Brooke Goldstein. “It is unacceptable, immoral and unlawful in Spain for online platforms to profit from extreme and violent propaganda against Jews.”
Ignacio Wenley Palacios, the project’s Spanish counsel, said that, “the cooperation with Google LLC has been instrumental in distilling from the case law of our Constitutional Court clear concepts of illegal content regarding Jews as a vulnerable minority and victims of the Holocaust that both uphold free speech to the utmost level allowed by the European Convention on Human Rights, while following the standards of the European Court of Justice.”
Google likewise recently announced changes to its policies on racist and extremist content on its YouTube subsidiary, but those changes do not affect the appearance of extreme content in Google search engine results. The previous decision was not connected to the work of the Lawfare Project.
In February, the Financial Times reported that Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were taking down nearly three-quarters of content deemed “hate speech” within 24 hours. In 2016, these same platforms signed up to follow voluntary hate speech rules in an effort to prevent EU-wide regulations against the tech giants.
FT reported that the hate speech removal rate jumped substantially from the average of 28% of reported content being removed within 24 hours when the code of conduct was introduced in 2016.