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Italian Wikipedia May Shut Down Due To New Legislation
An anonymous reader writes "Proposed legislation under debate in Italy has Wikipedia warning of a shutdown for the Italian version of the site. They say the law would create 'a requirement to all websites to publish, within 48 hours of the request and without any comment, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image.' They further explain. 'Unfortunately, the law does not require an evaluation of the claim by an impartial third judge — the opinion of the person allegedly injured is all that is required, in order to impose such correction to any website. Hence, anyone who feels offended by any content published on a blog, an online newspaper and, most likely, even on Wikipedia can directly request the removal of such contents and its permanent replacement with a "corrected" version, aimed to contradict and disprove the allegedly harmful contents, regardless of the truthfulness of the information deemed as offensive, and its sources.'"
There, I think I just got Slashdot shut down...
So if an opposition politician puts in complaints about official websites then he gets to rewrite them? Or would it be limited to the websites of political parties as a means of political chaos? I think they just invented a new national sport.
If someone who is offended can require a correction be made without comment, then surely anyone else can be offended by the correction and have it reverted - without comment.
Obviously wikipedia already has that feature - the offended person simply needs to press the 'edit' button and type in the objections and corrections. Repeat as necessary, after anyone else makes new versions of the page concerned.
You know you can host websites not in Italia only, don't you?
...allowed in the European Union? It really compromises the image of the whole entity that they have no problem with this absurd level of corruption. This is obviously another censorship/media control ploy by Berlusconi, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was specifically designed to hurt Wikipedia.
Great Intellect...
First, Berlusconi and his cronies control the traditional media in Italy. Making something difficult for their competitors is in their direct financial interest. This also works well because a major reason they can stay in power are elderly individuals who don't understand and are scared by all this new-fangled technology. At this point, Berlusconi is clearly one of the most corrupt and incompetent politicians ever in Italy. This whole thing would be funny if not for the fact that this womanizing shmuck is in charge of one of the largest economies in Europe during an ongoing financial crisis. It seems to me that this sort of thing might actually be enough for the sane Italians to wake up and realize how fucked up their government is. Th But so far, they've had a lot of crazy crap and haven't yet done so, and Wikipedia itself is not nearly as popular in Italy as it is in some other languages. (For example, the German Wikipedia is extremely popular in the German speaking world.) So I'm pessimistic.
I hope they make good on this threat. Eventually citizens will take a hard look at their leaders when they can no longer have nice things.
Procrastination Man strikes again!
Why does a language section of Wikipedia have to close down because of a country? Aren't there enough Italian speaking people outside Italy to matter? Why not just block visitors from Italy (meaning: show them the message that it's the fault of that law that Wikipedia can't work in Italy)?
Maybe some Italian article would be useful to me even though I'm not Italian nor speak Italian (there are translators). Why does everyone else have to suffer?
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I'm pretty certain that doing this would violate the free speech protections in the European Union's charter and related laws, no? While I haven't read it, I wouldn't be surprised if there was something in the Italian constitution about it, considering the idea of free speech goes back centuries.
Seriously why these idiots get elected again and again?
So... Italian law might allow anyone to rewrite history on Wikipedia. How is that significantly different than how Wikipedia already functions? If someone is offended by something on Wikipedia, they can submitedit the article. And within 48 hours (seconds actually) it will be present without comment. And then 10 seconds later, someone else will have corrected it back to the truth.
Where in the law does it say the edit has to stay up?
The ______ Agenda
Not very many steps to "That casts my ancestors in a bad light, and so casts me in a bad light. I am offended."
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
We've had this shit before with Google and Youtube. Italy's Wikipedia doesn't need to be hosted in Italy. They can block it for a while and throw a tantrum, but will come to their senses eventually. If it comes to it, the EU could start an enquiry for violation of its charter; it seems likely free speech is somewhere in there.
Italian politicians pop up in the scandals pretty often. I guess they're tired of seeing themselves all over the 'net.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I would expect that Wikipedia would be THE ONLY SITE that will be able to comply with this.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Can I again request for the corrected version to be taken down claiming it hurts me while the other party does the same ad-infinitum? Where does the buck stop?
Fool of a Took! This is about job creation. Everyone knows that the Italian job market needs a bit of a kick-a-long. This makes highly skilled IT positions as people continue to update information. The buck stops with them, silly billy!
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
And it's not like Wikipedia, nor its "editors" are exactly "neutral" either.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Italy is just maintaining its hard earned reputation as one of the worst place in the EU to be a journalist:
http://en.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/carte-2011.pdf
http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2010,1034.html
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
by the notion that such a law could EVER be misused.
Do the Italians actually LIKE this guy? Are there no alternatives to vote for? Are the alternatives worse?
Embarrass them. Replace the name with silly random words, like: "Smoofa moved to Proggville in 2005 to record her first album, "I Smoked Fluug While Loving You"...
Table-ized A.I.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it.wikipedia.org isn't hosted in Italy. Ergo, the authorities aren't in a position to fine or arrest anyone posting "defamatory" material... unless an offending editor resident in Italy drops a bit too much identifying material on their personal page. Seems like more of a PITA than a deal breaker.
Luke, help me take this mask off
In Germany, it has always been the law that if a newspaper publishes something about you that you think isn't true, they have to publish what you say. So in the next edition you would read something like "We wrote xxx. Mr. X complained about this, and we are required by law to tell you that he claims yyy. This is not necessarily the truth. ".
The best one I ever read was this followed by "we published the article because we received a declaration under oath that xxx is true. We now also received a declaration under oath that xxx is false. We don't know which one, but we know someone lied under oath and passed both statements to the police."
It really depends on what exactly this law says. Best case Wikipedia adds a button where any person who feels offended can post what they claim is the truth, without modifying the article.
TFA fails to explain why this proposed Italian legislation affects Wikipedia. As far as as I know, the Wikimedia foundation and the main servers are located in Florida, and subject to U.S. law.
TBH Italian version of Wikipedia it's just a plain and ugly mess, entries are badly written, when they are written at all. Probably its editors are 12 years old or something. As a friend of mine says, it should be really called wIKEApedia instead: if this silly proposal finally becomes law and it.wikipedia.org gets shuts down, no one here in Italy will miss it.
Now we know why they left, the politicians!
www.wopikedia.com isn't taken.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
As an Italian I'm absolutely disgusted by the power of anti-defamation laws. These laws result not only in a severe limitation of free speech but also harm all progress. It's very easy to find that your political opponent or your business competitor is defaming you. Threatening with the law is first and then comes suing.
A likely root to this issue with defamation is "la bella figura". Italians value good appearance and decorum.
But we Italians basically reduce ourselves to 3rd rate individuals by imposing idiotic limitations on ourselves. It's in our nature and I don't expect non-Italians to understand this.
And no, an improvement of the situation is not to be expected. The Italian mentality is to emphasise disagreement on details and to avoid compromises -let alone cooperation- with the so called enemy. Left wing governments die in righteous beauty and right wing governments are next to totalitarian.
However, we never miss lunch and forget our differences over an exquisitely prepared dish. And then we can't be arsed to structurally solve issues.
But there are a few good things about this model. Junk food is very limited in Italy. And to maintain "la bella figura" we care for art and industrial design.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
So this is another step in the process of taking away information from the public, silencing the internet.
Please mod me 1 or troll. It's where the truth is these days, even on Slashdot. Beware the power of moderators everywh
Can please USA invade us, and get complete control of our nation? We are not capable of doing that ourselves, it seems.. i'm serious! Part of the package will be free access to colosseum and pizza 4 everyone..
Having the symbol of the Eagle everywhere will remind you of old times too...
Tons of ridiculous Italian laws get proposed, most of them don't pass. This is one of the many ways politicians in Italy waste time and money. Of course, even if this doesn't pass, Italy is still in a very sad state of affairs. Italy's keeping company to Burkina Faso on the Freedom of Press Index. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index ]. The problem stems from the godlike power given to Italian judges and politicians. Want a pertinent example? How about Giuliano Mignini, now internationally renowned for his demented control of the Meridith Kercher investigation. This following letter was by the Committee to Protect Journalists to the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano. It highlights several very grave abuses of power committed by Mignini in the past. [ http://www.cpj.org/2011/04/journalists-threatened-for-reporting-on-murder-cas.php ]
because the European Union isn't about some social ideal where personal freedoms and responsibility come first. It was about money and power, money and power do not care about individual rights or silly freedoms some countries take for granted. It was about self serving politicians looking a life time meal ticket for themselves and their banker buddies. It was working, until the fact that corrupt government officials tend to ruin the party for everyone.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
and I wouldn't be surprised if this was specifically designed to hurt Wikipedia.
This is in no way a direct attack against Wikipedia, they have resources to relocate, just because it's in Italian doesn't mean it needs to be hosted in Italy. Sure they might loose the .it top-level domain, but that's probably the worst case...
If anything, this might be aimed at bloggers and newspapers, I not saying this is better, much more likely...
- This just Wikipedia taking a political stand, that said it's a sad reality when it comes to this.
...allowed in the European Union?
Because the European court of human rights might just set things straight.
Anyways, remember this is just proposed legislation, who knows how seriously it's being proposed.
The servers aren't in italy..end of story.
While editors in italy might potentially be in trouble, this law has zero impact on the italian wikipedia staying up or down.
"Beware the Ides of March."
This is stupid, it is impossible to publish anything that wont offend someone, and if you replace it with something else, that is sure to offend yet someone else. Italy may as well shut down the net.... I honestly think this tops the chart on retarded ideas... People need to get a grip, it is not possible to have a world that will not show you some offense somewhere, as others have different views and personalities...
India at least suggests that the barrier you point to isn't as insurmountable as all that, though it is a big issue.
OTOH, India, which is the world's largest democracy and second largest country, with a population a little less than twice that of Europe as w hole, has two official languages at the national level (but explicitly not national languages), and its states and territories can define their own official and recognized languages and have designated (in total) many more.
The law itself is abysmal, but there's no reason for it to affect Wikipedia.
Yeah this move makes no sense. You would think from Wiki Foundation's reaction that this law affects only Italian-language websites. After all, a tracert to it.wikipedia.org and en.wikipedia.org shows the exact same IP: 208.80.152.201 -- this is presumably a US-based server. Even if Italy's laws are enforceable on a US-based foundation with US-based servers, if Wiki-foundation is taking down the Italian language website, it might as well take down the English language site, the German language site, and all the rest of them since any of them might have some criticism of someone that could file a suit in an Italian court...
It strikes me that in making this claim, Wikipedia is taking up a political fight. Wikipedia is not in any danger from the law, they're theatrically threatening to pull out, despite being unaffected, in order to draw attention to this. I'm against this abhorrent and ridiculous law, but I'm not in favor of Wikipedia making exaggerated claims and throwing its weight around on political issues.
I totally agree that the powers-that-be at wikipedia simply don't like the law and are making a big to-do about it, with its Italian-language users needlessly put in between.
I think norpy's complaint is that most people don't feel like babysitting their edits through the BOLD, revert, discuss loop. They see their edits reverted with no edit summary or a bullshit inscrutable edit summary, and they don't have the time to take it to the talk page and build a consensus for the change, especially when one of the article's established editors is violating the policy against exerting undue control of the article's text.
The mind boggles.
Here in the U.S, legislators have immunity from liability for official acts (as in, they cannot be sued or prosecuted for voting for a law that turns out to be illegal), and their offices cannot be searched without a warrant, even though the offices are govt. property. Their files have some limited legal privilege. Lastly, they cannot be detained on the way to attend a session of Congress.
That's it.
If they commit a crime, they can be charged and prosecuted just like any other citizen.
It already does. If you go to wikipedia.it you get redirected to it.wikipedia.org.
This is ridiculous. A web site hosted in the US that just happens to be in the Italian language should no more be subject to Italian laws than the English wikipedia is. They should just redirect the Italian IP address range to the explanatory page.
do you think its time to gather anyone who hasn't lost the will to think and criticize and move to China? at least they are honest about their censorship
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?