Slashdot Mirror
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...
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.
...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.
To draw the attention to the problem. Trust me, noone cares about the rights untill it comes back to them and bites them in the back soft spot. When most of italians are unable to browse wikipedia and see a disclaimer that due to their laws it is impossible to operate in that country — then it's more likely that this law will be scrapped.
Seriously - don't host in Italy, and who cares?
Do you think the Wikipedia page on North Korea confoms to the laws of North Korea? The wikipedia article itself, in the span of two sentences, shows that it's not a legal article there:
In its 2010 report, Reporters Without Borders ranked the freedom of the press in North Korea as 177th out of 178, above only that of Eritrea.[136] Only news that favors the regime is permitted...
I don't hear anyone threatening to pull it down.
The law itself is abysmal, but there's no reason for it to affect Wikipedia. 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.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Seriously - don't host in Italy, and who cares?
Perhaps Italians who have to live in Italy, just might be subject to Italian no matter where they hosts and are probably strongly represented in the group of people who administrate Italian Wikipedia??
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
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?
Italy has been electing Berlusconi since 1994. Losing the Italian Wikipedia doesn't even register as a speedbump in the ongoing disaster that Italians refuse to take personal responsibility for.
IIRC the UK just sent somebody to prison for trolling
To suggest it was simply for trolling is somewhat understating the matter. While I agree that he shouldn't have gone to prison, we are talking about an extended and targetted campaign of obscene harrassment against individuals who had done nothing at all to the perpetrator. 18 weeks in prison (of which he will only serve 9 unless he reoffends after leaving) seems justifiable. OTOH, as the offence is simply a symptom of the guy's Asperger's syndrome, he probably shouldn't have been punished for it at all.
It is a long-held belief that freedom of speech extends only as far as it does not cause harm to others, which is acknowledged both in the US and here in Europe. Harrassment causes harm, and therefore should not be permitted under the banner of freedom of speech. In the US, this is the relevant statute he could have been prosecuted under, and would have been eligible for a much longer prison sentence had he been convicted.
Holocaust denial, OTOH, is an entirely different matter, and I can see no justification at all in laws that prevent it.
Yeah I had the same thought. or even ... all the members of the notorious Anonymous could submit a constant stream of corrections they find offensive, and as soon as the site gets re-written, another member can claim that re-write is offensive. In fact, some industrious trolling could completely collapse the .it domain. And what about search results? Is there a bing or google search result that is offensive? People might be able to make constant, non-stop requests that search results be edited because the results were offensive.
I am overwhelmed at the potential for electronic mayhem that this law provides. There are so many ways, so many things. Its like, Italy is making the Internet Troll an official part of their government!
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
In 2006 Italians were already sick and tired of Berlusconi. The left-wing coalition were already planning a glorious victory, the problem is that it's a coalition formed basically by all politicians screwed by Berlusconi that inclusdes from catholics to communists, people who have in common little more than thair hatred for Berlusconi. Even before the election they were fighting for the best offices in the coming government scaring many people. Eventually they won anyway but they spent two years just bickering among them because they all had different agendas. The highest achievement of that left-wing government was trying to solve prisons overcrowding releasing thousands of petty criminals, too bad a lot of them got back in jail for new crimes within a few months. After two years the left-wing coalition had to give up because they were incapable of governing and a new anticipated election was held. People were so disgusted that they voted Berlusconi again just because he's the devil you know! Italy is still carrying the legacy of the Cold War, when vote was ideological, the country was a battleground for various terrorist groups and corruption was tollerated because there were worse things to think about. It's taking too long for Italy and particularly for Italian politicans to understand that today a lot of people can switch their votes to and fro the two coalitions and both of them seem to still showing how inadequate they are to govern a modern country.
Ciao
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.
I agree with this proposition, that the language being edited is irrelevant. The issue here is how it impacts collaborative writing projects involving Italian citizens rather than simply a particular language edition of Wikipedia.
What is significant here is that the Italian language version of the the project generally already conforms to Italian law in part because the policies have been established by people who are familiar with that country's laws. The threat here is that the volunteers are suggesting a nuclear/scorched earth option that if they are not going to be legally permitted to edit or maintain Wikipedia, that they simply want to get rid of the whole project altogether. At least that is my gist of what the threat listed on the Italian language edition of Wikipedia is trying to say.
Even more significant, the volunteers at the Italian language edition of Wikipedia hosted a 24 hour "blackout" after considerable discussion that was supported by the greater Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees that essentially gave a blank check support to the Italian language volunteers as well as the "Wikimedia Italia" local chapter in their fight on this particular issue. While it may not be strictly necessary to shut down the project in America, the net effect is essentially the same if the volunteer community simply pulls the plug.
Since many people in Italy use Wikipedia as a resource in their native language, the volunteers want the Italian people to realize just how serious this issue is to them, and how a very valuable resource can simply disappear if this law is allowed to stand. In that sense, I think this "blackout" was a very good idea. The real "news for nerds" isn't the law... even if that is the trigger... but the fact that Wikipedia blanked itself out yesterday and this morning (depending on what time zone you live in) with the Italian language edition.
The fact that legally speaking it seems like we are moving into a world where the lowest common denominator seems to be prevailing in terms of how you conduct yourself with international projects on the internet, this is an issue even with other language editions of Wikipedia or for that matter even Slashdot.... assuming Italian citizens participate with posts here. In the case of Slashdot, they are going to be forced by the Italian law to respond to any potential slander or "misrepresentation of fact" by removing content in a fashion similar to the DMCA. Note that the DMCA only covers blatant copyright violations, where as this law covers much more (hence the slander or "misrepresentation" issues) where take-down notices can be filed for practically any reason at all and must be dealt with or you will be facing international legal injunctions that might be recognized by American courts due to "intellectual property" treaties.
There is some real teeth in the issue here, and one that sadly might start impacting other websites over time as well. Even worse, there seems to be a tendency for laws of this nature to spread to other countries, where there certainly are several Europhiles in the American government who love to adopt laws like this into American society once they have been established "over there". This is a canary in a coalmine, so to say, and the canary is dying. At stake here is the concept of free speech altogether, especially for such a seductive concept for the expansion of government authority over the printed word.
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...