A revenge porn bill in New York State, which would have made the distribution of revenge porn punishable by up to a year in prison, was reportedly defeated by Google.
According to the New York Post, the bill died on Thursday “after the Senate adjourned for the year and took no action in the wake of an 11th-hour campaign by Google against the legislation.”
Distributing revenge porn would have become a misdemeanor under the bill, carrying a maximum sentence of a year in prison, while it also would have made it easier for victims of revenge porn to sue websites who fail to remove the images.
“But Google mounted a late effort against the bill, with the internet behemoth opposed to any government oversight of how it regulates content,” the New York Post explained.
In response to Google’s campaign against the legislation, attorney Carrie Goldberg accused lawmakers of “bowing down” to “tech corporate overlords,” and declared, “It’s deeply disturbing that Google and tech lobbyists were quiet as a church mouse for the five years this bill has been percolating in Albany and then literally the morning it’s up for vote, they bulldoze in with coercive demands on our lawmakers to change the language.”
“It’s a disgrace how weak our lawmakers look for bowing down to these tech corporate overlords,” Goldberg continued. “There could be no better showing of what unfettered power big tech has on our government. It’s sickening.”
“Any claims they make that big tech is aligned with victims of revenge porn are as hollow as Trump saying he’s aligned with separated immigrant families facing deportation,” Goldberg concluded. “Big Tech, especially Google, created the revenge porn problem. And now, just as we were about to enable victims to demand removal of their most intimate material from the internet via this law, Google renews its abuse.”
Revenge porn victims have previously pursued legal action to get private images removed from Google, and last year, an attorney who specializes in Internet privacy cases accused Big Tech of having broken systems to stop revenge porn.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington, or like his page at Facebook.
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