SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Milorad Trkulja was shot by an unknown gunman in Melbourne in 2004, then discovered that Google searches of his name brought up images of mob figures, including prolific drug trafficker Tony Mokbel. Gangland activity in the city was prevalent at the time.
Trkulja successfully sued Google in The Victorian Supreme Court in 2012, receiving AU$200,000 in damages (roughly $150,000). He then launched a second defamation action in 2013, alleging Google's autocomplete predictions, as well as searching phrases such as "Melbourne underworld criminals", wrongly brought up his name and image. Google took the case to the Victorian Court of Appeal and won that round.
Now the High Court has granted Trkulja special leave to appeal against that decision.
"In each of the pages on which images of such persons appear," the judgement said according to the ABC, "there are also images of persons who are notorious criminals or members of the Melbourne criminal underworld... coupled with images of persons, such as Mr Trkulja whose identity is relatively unknown."
Google tried to stop the case, but the High Court ruled there was clear potential for defamation.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @03:41AM (4 children)
If there is a specific page that's defaming him then those responsible for that page are defaming him and he should get compensation from them.
But if there are no pages claiming he's a mob figure and it's Google that's making him look bad because of some algorithm being stupid then Google should fix that.
For example say there are zero pages claiming he is a mob figure and I search for Australian mob figures why would I want to see images of him? Or if I search _specifically_ for his name why would I want to see images of mob figures? Nor would I want Google to show me up stories of mob figures that do not contain his name.
Often when I search for keyword A on Google I get loads of hits for keyword B that do NOT contain keyword A. So I wouldn't be surprised if Google is making him look bad even if by mistake or "trying to be helpful". However if mens rea is required for defamation in Australia then Google is not guilty of defamation unless he has brought it to Google's attention and Google did not fix the issue within a reasonable time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Fluffeh on Thursday June 14 2018, @06:10AM (3 children)
Interestingly, I just did. The links were all about him suing Google. I then removed links with the word "Court". Suddenly apart from a Facebook Profile and a LinkedIn page (Showing up as: Michael Trkulja - Defamation specialist - Milorad Trkulja) there's no other links I could see in the first three pages that actually seemed to reference him directly.
So, lets say that getting mysteriously shot at a time when there was a bit of a crime blitz going on was actually the most notable thing that happened to him as far as the internet is concerned. So, if you search specifically for him and flick over to images... why wouldn't you expect to see images related to things that happened around the time he had his 15 seconds. I used an exact search for his name and happened to see a Messi image there too. Does Google get credit for then applying a bonus in his search results?
Interestingly, this whole article is just about him being ALLOWED to sue google in a court. The case will still actually have to be won on merits - which I happen to think he has few of.
It's not my expectation that a google search result is a referenced, peer-reviewed and contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I am expecting it to be a combination of search results, associations based on a number of secret things that google knows and I don't - and in all that, I would hope that what I was looking for existed, hopefully standing out more than the rest of the stuff in there.
Google your own name, then append a positive spin (is kind or has a mighty dong or is super smart) and you'll still get search results. Flipping it a negative one will probably return just as many results. Doesn't mean you got defamed. It just means a search algorithm isn't perfect or can't verify truth. I'm cool with that, and I would prefer to defend search engines as their benefits FAR outweigh their faults in my eyes.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @06:46AM (2 children)
(Score: 2, Touché) by Fluffeh on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:54AM (1 child)
His whole case is that Google is defaming him by putting a negative spin on his name. Pretty sure that makes it not my strawman argument.
*sips coffee*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @07:46PM
That's different from googling while appending a negative/positive spin which was what you were talking about before. Then now you're talking about something different. You're either intellectually dishonest or you're mentally incompetent or you really need to do more than sip that coffee.
Here's what you said (emphasis mine):