Italy's First Steps in Censoring the Internet

mijio writes "It's not the first time that Italy discusses Internet censorship. The last year, after some guys appeared in a video punching and blaming a kid with Down syndrome, Minister of Education Fioroni brought in to trial two of Google Italy's managers and then proposed and strongly sustained his idea of censoring the Internet to protect the young. Now Ricardo Levi, the prime minister's right hand, is finally successful in promulgating his law on internet censorship. With the goal of "promoting and enriching the pluralism of information," the law rules that everyone involved in "editorial activity" must be subscribed to the "Registry of Operators of Communication" to be prosecutable in case of defamation, where "editorial product" is defined as "any product with purpose of information, education, divulgation, entertainment, aimed at publication, no matter the form it is realized in and the mean it is distributed with." When inquired about the effects of this rule for bloggers, Levi responded, "We have no interest in touching amatorial or personal sites, it would be not feasible". The Times speaks about this paradox as well."

Comments

In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

...they congratulate because the torch is being carried on!

Re:It's Italy, wait a week

[rumith]

We're talking about a country that changes governments like people change underwear. Relax and wait a week. You mean people change underwear once a week? I should have known...

In the last year

[binarybum]

man, I totally remember the last year when that video came out - that kid was seriously blamed!

Re:How's this for defamation?

[Daimanta]

America sucks!

Regulate th#*@)*#@)# [NO CARRIER]

Someone punches a retard and Italy goes Nazi?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Come on Italy... are you that afraid of information?

You misunderstood.

[Gription]

He didn't say "unconstitutional". He actually said "uncostitutional".

The cost of any internet censorship scheme would be astronomical so I would have to agree that it is uncostitutional.

Re:How's this for defamation?

[pla]

Italy sucks! Regulate that.

Nonono, don't blame the country, blame the asshats who push for idiocy like this.

Try:

Fioroni, who only defend retards for the familial resemblance, molests dead sheep; Ricardo Levi takes sloppy seconds while snorting lines of coke off the penises of 8YO boys. And they both smell funny. And... Uhhh... I dunno, something about watching too many American mafia movies if I could find the right phrasing to make it insulting but not just a racist joke, and some sort of insult to the pope for good measure.

Oh hell. Lost it there.

Doodie!