Three Google executives have been convicted by a judge in Italy over a video uploaded to YouTube that shows a group of school children bullying an autistic child. The case could pose serious implications for social media and the web in general.

Google worked with the Italian authorities in order to help ID the person responsible for uploading the video and the other participants from the video, who were sentenced all to community service. But now, Google executives David Drummond, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes have been convicted for "failure to comply with the Italian privacy code."

The ruling means that employees of hosting platforms like Google Video are criminally responsible for content that users upload. Google will now appeal this decision, saying ‘the Google employees on trial had nothing to do with the video in question.’

But can a business really be held accountable for user-generated content? After all the whole web is pretty much generated by users. Should company owners be penalised, even if they comply with requests to remove such content? Think about the following:

•    What if YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. had to shut down because it couldn't control the things users post?
•    What if every blogging platform had to do the same?
•    What if you went to jail for comments posted on your blog?

Now, whilst you're not likely going to go to jail for comments posted on your blog, the point is, that by allowing people to post comments on your blog, you are allowing user-generated content that you can't control until after it's been posted. Google is being held accountable for content that users uploaded, which was not in their control - YouTube users upload 20 hours of video every minute.

The case is subject to appeal, but if it is not overturned, what will this mean for the web? Tell us what you think.

If rulings like this become commonplace, how much do you think that would affect the social media industry? Companies like Google, Facebook, MySpace, etc. couldn't let users upload content, which essentially means social media couldn't exist. User-generated content couldn't exist. How could you blog? How could you leave a status update on Facebook, or upload a family photo?

That's why Google is not only upset about the ruling against its executives, but calls it a "serious threat to the web.