Maradona, Argie celebs back internet censorship

Several Argentine court decisions have promoted online censorship at the request of paranoid celebs.

Over one hundred “major public figures” in Argentina including soccer legend Diego Maradona have won temporary injunctions pertaining to local search engines. Since last year, Argentine judges have ruled that local search engines are held accountable to the pages they index. As a result, search results from Yahoo Argentina and Google Argentina have been filtered to only include major news sites.

As asinine and ludicrous as the injunctions are, what is more appalling is the obvious conflict of interest by some plaintiffs:

But it's not only Maradona and other celebrities who are looking to protect their image by joining Leguizamon's suit; the litigants also include three important judicial figures, among them high-profile judge Maria Servini de Cubria, many of whose rulings have been questioned in the blogosphere and even in the mainstream media. "She is a public official," said the Google Argentina spokesperson. "Where do we draw the line...? Her presence in the list of lawsuits has made this a political question concerning freedom of information."

Furthermore, the esteemed justices overlooked one vital loophole to their dimwitted rulings: users can access the barred information via the international versions of Yahoo and Google.

Other countries have placed restrictions on search engine finds in other countries regarding neo-Nazism. Hopefully the argentine judges can see the error of their ways and reverse the pathetic kowtowing of egotistical public figures.

Image- AFP
Sources- The Latin Americanist, CNET News, World Cup Blog, Time