Italy Wants to Restrict Blogs

nx writes "Italy wants to restrict bloggers' rights by forcing everyone to register their blogs, pay a tax and have a journalist as a "responsible director". This law is clearly designed to curb critical voices and free speech, although it has yet to be approved by parliament."

Comments

One day soon

[davegravy]

PirateBay will have a new torrent section called "thoughts", where one can download all the latest illegal ideas people have uploaded.

Re:Not the truth

[scosta]

Yes, the original post was basically vaporware, and "questionable" in origin in the sense that who has written it (http://www.beppegrillo.it/) has a personal interest to make things worse then they are.

But it is true that the law text was extremely generic, and so prone to every kind of interpretation, pessimistic or optimistic.

The basic problem is that italian laws are often very badly written (in the sense that are basically and fundamentally unclear). And in the confusion, everyone can say everything...

Actually it is: here's the text

[orzetto]

The source of the information is not just Beppe Grillo's blog, since that redirects to this article by La Repubblica, the main Italian newspaper, and the text of the proposed law itself.

In the text of the proposed law, I read: (Art. 2:1)

Per prodotto editoriale si intende qualsiasi prodotto contraddistinto da finalità di informazione, di formazione, di divulgazione, di intrattenimento, che sia destinato alla pubblicazione, quali che siano la forma nella quale esso è realizzato e il mezzo con il quale esso viene diffuso.

This means, in brief, that any product with purpose of information, formation, diffusion and entertainment meant for publication is actually targeted by the law, with no exception for no-profit sites. You only need to be a provider of information to be required to register your activity (Art. 6:1). Mr. AlbertoP, you are talking out of your ass, and Mr. Levi in his interview is lying (or he's incompetent, or both).

Now, some background for you Americans about what is happening over in Italy: there is mounting dissatisfaction with the current political class, which is seen as highly corrupt and mostly busy with covering its ass. I voted for the current government (Prodi, centre-left), and there is no way I am going over to the other side (which would be Berlusconi's), but I am myself very dissatisfied with the current bipartisan climate, and it seems I am in good company. Last year the parliament passed a general pardon to solve an overpopulation problem in jails (you read right: too many criminals, let's put them back on the streets!) which caused a spike in crime rate; the actual reason for a pardon instead of building more jails was that the pardon covered also crimes committed by certain politicians. This, the fact that the government is more busy with infighting that with maintaining the promises given in their 280-page program presented at the last election, the personality of jackass-politician Clemente Mastella (who attended a mafioso's wedding and is now fittingly minister of Justice) and many other things caused a general discontent.

Enter Beppe Grillo. A well-known comedian with a history of getting banned and censored for jokes on politicians since the '80s, he started a blog a few years ago and, in the current climate, decided to organise a "Fuck-off day" ("Vaffanculo day", V-Day as in V for Vendetta), a series of national rallies all over Italy and abroad. 4-letter words aside, the idea was to gather signatures for some popular-initiative law proposals (no felons can run for office, two-term limit in parliament, and so on). About a million people participated, and 300,000 signatures were gathered (even on an Italian scale, this is quite a success).

Politicians got scared and started to attack Grillo almost in unison; this law is an effort to silence Grillo and anybody who would take his place.

For the good news: infrastructure minister Antonio Di Pietro (yes, I voted for his party and I'm damn happy I did) said that if this law proposal is not retired he's torpedoing the government and forcing new elections. Nothing straightens out politicians like the threat to lose their post... Grazie Tonino!