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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."
Italy sucks!
Regulate that.
Someone hates these cans.
Riccardo Levi already stepped back: There was a misunderstanding, he said, we don't want to censor anything and actions will be taken to clarify the law on this point.
- It is uncostitutional: see here (link in Italian);
- It won't be proposed in this form due to the huge debate it has raised.
Please, Slashdot editors... do at least some basic research before posting stuff like this.A CC-licensed illustrated horror novel
...they congratulate because the torch is being carried on!
"registering all web site operators" scheme was proposed even in turkey, then abandoned. italians are even behind turkey when it comes to internet, apparently. "protecting the young" my butt. the only thing the young need protection from, are rotten spirited politicians like those.
Read radical news here
A German court recently forced one of the larger ISPs to block access to the Youporn site. Originally they (the ISP) tried it by blocking access to the IP-Address but since Youporn is hosted by GoDaddy, that blocked their customers' access to thousands of other sites as well. Now they have tried it at the DNS level.
The background to this is that a German porn site had to implement stringent controls to make sure the underage did not manage to sample their wares. Youporn did not bother with this and so had an unfair advantage. I read that Youporn is something like the 14th most popular site in Germany.
Several other organisations apparently have similar plans to shut down access to some site or other.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Italy has a Minister of Finance.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
...if they decided to put a tax on Slashdot comments instead. Best way to zero out the national debt in just a couple of months.
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
Porn. Stretching it a little, dating sites.
man, I totally remember the last year when that video came out - that kid was seriously blamed!
ôó
after some guys appeared in a video punching and blaming a kid with Down syndrome
then proposed and strongly sustained his idea of censoring the Internet to protect the young.
Anyone else see a glaring contradiction here? If it was censored no one would have ever seen the video, in turn the kid would have never had his story shown, and in turn no one would have ever cared about him getting punched. The problem with censoring "graphical" content is it promotes exactly what the supporters of the censoring tell you it's trying to avoid, apathy.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
"We have no interest in touching amatorial or personal sites"
Italians! That is the only thing they have in mind.
Surely if censorship of the internet is to "Protect Children" then why not simply ban children from using the internet? This proposal would be like seeing children in a pub, then making everyone drink water, so the kids dont get drunk. what i never understood is, why try to keep children "innocent" only to viscously corrupt them with the hideous reality of their pathetic lives at 18?
This shouldn't effect my IED bomb making site a bit.
Come on Italy... are you that afraid of information?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge,
For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master"
I used to use this as my sig, I think I'll start doing it again. FYI, its a paraphrase of the last part of a statement in by Pravin Lal in Sid Meyer's Alpha Centuari.
Heres the full text:
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last loose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
-- Commissioner Pravin Lal, "Librarian's Preface"
Government asking ISPs to block access to certain sites (any sites) should be made illegal worldwide. ISPs lose money and undergo additional expenses incurred by government censors: They cannot provide true unlimited access to the Internet and have to spend time and money in blocking sites. Government censors interfere with their business and if they make the life of ISP entrepreneurs very difficult then we will stop seeing more small new ISPs being founded because of the costs and risks involved and Internet access will become the monopoly of one or two "government-backed" ISPs. Government censorship actively discourages young entrepreneurs to startup ISP businesses and contributed to the unemployment problem. The business model of an ISP is to offer access to the Internet, and the ISP is neither responsible for what you do with it, nor it should tell you what is good or bad. It's like roads: How would you feel if trying to take a road with your car resulted in a police officer stoping you and informing you that you have been blacklisted off road access because you are a Jew or Arab, or because your car is painted black and the government doesn't like this colour? Blocking sites may create problems to people who do academic research as well, destroying our chance to discover and analyse new social phenomena.
It is uncostitutional
Constitution can change as well, and even if it is violated no one will notice or bother.
It won't be proposed in this form due to the huge debate it has raised.
I bet that the government will pass the law in another form: As a data protection law which will say that everyone who keeps a file with personal information will have to register with the government (or an authority - which is the same thing in my opinion).
Then if you create a blog and accept comments, and your blog software asks for the email address of the people posting the comments, your blog's database may be seen as incorporating personal information and therefore failing to register your blog with the government will result in you being imprisoned for 2 or 3 years and paying a huge fine.
In the end the only way to conduct online business or having a blog will be to store no information about your clients or visitors at all, which I don't think is a bad thing (although it does create practical problems, and many sites wouldn't function at all), but in case one of your clients or site visitors posts something illegal online through your user-generated content Web 2.0 site and you failed to delete it immediately (let's say you were in vacations or had to work overtime in a day job) you will have to explain to the government why you failed to implement their other law about keeping information that can help the police catch online criminals.
So, they will have one law saying that you can't not collect some personal information (that you can't delete your server logs or conduct business without knowing the name or address of your client), and another law saying that if you possess any information about any person then you have to register with the government, and as an "added bonus" you will also have to explain to the government exactly how your network/server security infrastructure works (eg how strong encryption you use, so that they can be better prepared to break it), where the server is physically located (so that they can capture it more easily), and you will also need a special permit to have your server out of the country as the data protection law will specify that one has to ask for permission before storing personal data outside the country.
And the funny thing is that the people will support these laws thinking that they protect their personal data. People will support it thinking that it is necessary for protection against criminals etc. But people don't know that freedom is needed for a society to flourish, and you can't have science, philosophy, commerce, and art in a non-free world. Laws have great collateral damage, and even if they help catching a few criminals, they may also be used for political purposes.
The fact that Internet still exists is thanks to its use by big commercial businesses. Had the Internet remained a network for amateurs and hackers (in the ESR's definition, eg a great programmer and a person who loves computers - the criminals who break your server are called crackers, not hackers, no matter what TV says) it would have been banned long ago (this, or the government would have required every modem to incorporate a government's spying chip). But because commercial businesses found Internet useful and it got economic value, it was allowed to flourish without much control. However, I don't think this will be allowed for too long. For example, with the TCPA (Treacherous Computing, also known as Trusted Computing) initiative, we could see cryptography chips in our hardware controlling what software we can run on our PCs (hint hint: GNU/Linux distros will be excluded as "hacking tools" because they contain nmap and similar utils), and laws requiring every Internet-connected PC to have such a chip embedded (without you knowing the encryption/sign keys).
While Western democratic governments may not be so control freaks, other governments (eg China PRC's communists, or Myanmar's milit
Congratulations on pointing out an obvious joke.
Please help metamoderate.
Don't be derogatory just because someone is of a certain nationality or race. Everywhere I have gone I have found wonderful people to share a drink with. (Italians seem to know more about relaxing then just about anyone so they get extra bonus points to boot...)
If you are going to bag on him do it because he just doesn't get the joke.
futile - [fyoot-l, fyoo-tahyl]
-adjective
1. trifling; frivolous; unimportant.
2. responding to anonymous cowards.
Like in every other thing in our life where's the red line?
A lot of the time, there isn't one.
Welcome to the real world.
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
Our government bans nothing based on nudity or sex. An adult can freely go and buy all kinds of porn here. Try buying Manhunt 2 in the UK. It's banned by a governmental body and cannot be legally sold there.
It could happen if people provided a financial and political incentive for abolishing all censorship laws worldwide. If a huge number of citizens worldwide agreed not to buy anything from nations that have censorship laws (eg the communist China PRC), voted for pro-freespeech politicians, and asked international organisations such as the EU and UN to formally recognise any censorship as equal to slavery, then it could happen. The important thing would be to make it happen with democratic consensus and via our current democratic institutions. For this reason, the people themselves should find a way to make the governments themselves feel more at ease with the idea of allowing greater freedoms to their subjects (which would be easier if people were more mature in their way of thinking and their actions, but it is a fact that most people today are unable to constructively use their freedom - whether this is a valid argument against giving them freedom, I am not sure but I tend to say freedom is non-negotiable). For example, in China PRC's case, people could push peacefully for the eradication of communism and censorship, while allowing the current leaders to have a position in a new democratic government. It is important to realise that governments and groups of leaders act as collective living beings that look after their own survival and self-preservation, and are keen to use violence if their own survival is at stake. So, for harmonious reforms to be made, people must massively and decisively ask for *gentle* progressive step-by-step social and legal changes over time, while at the same time not forgetting their greater goals and principles. Yes, it's difficult.
Practically, I don't see it happening any time soon, and I see discussions about such issues as mostly theoretical, for the reason that the people in general are stupid and incapable of putting their neurons in good use. Furthermore, many people see advantages in maintaining censorship laws, as long as they don't affect them directly. I didn't say it's easy... It is a fact that only a smart diplomat with a mind as clear as a philosopher's and as rational as a scientist's could handle such negotiations, but in reality the negotiations happen between two groups (governments and peoples) that are both irrational and have no idea what they really want, and so tend to act based on emotion and bureaucratic rules, often without any insight into the greater situation, even at the individual level.
So, realistically speaking, it can't happen because not enough people understand and agree to the concept of free speech. Theoretically, if a huge number of people agreed to it then it would be a matter of time until the total eradication of censorship.
But in the past some people could say the same about the slavery system, and at some point it was replaced by a more relaxed, improved, and more just system (albeit imperfect and not that much different in its basic properties, and the system unfortunately did not come together with changes in social subconscious psychological conceptualisations), at least here in the West. It took thousands of years but it happened (whether it will last I don't know... societal advances are not permanent and human societies can easily fall into less advanced levels if freedoms and rights are not used daily and if people don't understand the issues).
If you ask for my gut-feeling non-scientific personal time estimate, I think humanity will need some more 1000-1500 years before it abolishes censorship universally. The reason I think it will take so long is because I believe we are falling into another dark age (which I define as emergence of collective-massive irrationality, authoritarianism, war, etc, and yes this includes censorship), and I am not sure how long it will last but I would assume that with the technological tools available now future authoritarian rulers or organisations (eg a future church) could easily control large populations for at least a millennium (which is why people who unde
You know Valentino Rossi has a "WLF" on the necklace of his suit: it goes for "Viva la Figa!" :P
No, I won't translate the last word for you, and you should not google for it without a good pop up stopper
The very concept of such arbitrary red line is much more dangerous than anything that can be behind it.
Italy wants to "censor" the Internet, do they? I guess they've forgotten that the United States already "controls" the Internet, and since we're the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free there's no way we're gonna let the do it, so there.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You only change your underwear once a week?
Here I am changing my undies every day like a sucker.
Actually this is more like Internet-Fascism where crusty old Italian guys discusses what they think is right over pizza, pasta and a pretend-knowledge of the internet.
Wow. A (-1) flamebait mod. I'm not sure if this is actually a first for me, but it definitely comes as a surprise. A sad surprise, may I add. I would by far have preferred a proper argument.
So I presume that you will agree that a huge amount of religious works, including the bible, should be banned, as they offend me by contradicting and thus denying a well-established historical fact, the fact of biological evolution. No? Then perhaps banning holocaust denial is also a bad idea.
Again, my point in writing here is that I get the shivers each time politicians in a European country try to impose a little censorship, like Italy this time. (Last time was German minister of justice B. Zypriess, trying to extend their ridiculous nazi-complex to all of Europe, fortunately that was also prevented.) The reason I am scared is that there is actually a chance that such a law would also be implemented in Denmark, and I would really, really hate that. Not because I sympathize in any way with nazis, but because it is important to uphold the "neutrality" of freedom of speech, as it was formulated by Voltaire: "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."
Once you allow censorship, you'll soon see that it can just as easily be used to opress the truth.
BTW, how is Mordechai Vanunu doing these days?
-Lasse Hillerøe Petersen
I do not support censoring the internet, but you can look at this problem in a better prospective, such as thinking about the exploited teens that are shown in some site in a pornographic manners, that I support of being censored.
Like in every other thing in our life where's the red line?
Well, there's an obvious line between images made only with consenting adults, and images that involve non-consenting participants.
For the most part, that's not even a "line", more like a big gaping division - in the same way that most people can see the difference between rape and sex that isn't rape. The only grey area is age of consent.
As soon as we accept that the difference between what consenting adults do, and rape, is merely drawing a line somewhere, we get anti-sex / pro-censorship campaigners thinking it's fine to draw the line somewhere else, including criminialising acts (or images of acts) between consenting adults.