How Italy Wants to Kill Blogs and Free Speech Online
"Ricardo Franco Levi, Prodi’s right hand man, undersecretary to the President of the Council, has written the text to put a stopper in the mouth of the Internet. The draft law was approved by the Council of Ministers on 12 October. No Minister dissociated themselves from it. On gagging information, very quietly, these are all in agreement. The Levi-Prodi law lays out that anyone with a blog or a website has to register it with the ROC, a register of the Communications Authority, produce certificates, pay a tax, even if they provide information without any intention to make money. Blogs are being born every second, anyone can start one without a problem and they can write their thoughts, publish photos and videos. In fact, the route proposed by Levi limits access to the Internet. What young person is going to submit to all these hoops to do a blog? The Levi-Prodi law obliges anyone who has a website or a blog to get a publishing company and to have a journalist who is on the register of professionals as the responsible director. 99% would close down. The lucky 1% still surviving on the Internet according to the Levi-Prodi law would have to respond in the case of the lack of control on defamatory content in accordance with articles 57 and 57 bis of the penal code. Basically almost sure to be in prison." (Beppe Grillo)
Grillo reports that the Italian Government is planning to introduce a series of laws that would strictly regulate blogs. The purpose is clearly to tame free expression online, using the most powerful weapon available: bureaucracy. Politicians are extremely annoyed by the power of blogs in influencing the political debate and terrified by the idea that they might encourage mobilization and - gosh - critical thinking. Thus, this reaction is not surprising: the Italian local political class has been repeatedly humiliated by Beppe Grillo. On a daily basis, the former (?) comedian exposes the policians' corruption and ineptitude on his popular website. Politicians - who are used to the passivity of television - which they directly control and manage - are intimidated by the massive, anarchic and unregulated forms of participatory culture that new media allow. For those who don't know him, Grillo is an interesting beast, a cross between Stephen Colbert and Michael Moore.
hopefully this monstrous document will never become a law. Anyway it’s highly significant…
This government is really doing anti-democratic things and my wish is to see it fall as soon as possible.
We have too many taxes, everything is expensive and salaries are modest; this is not the right way to govern a nation.
I hope also to be able to express my opinion in the future.
Posted by: Lo psicologo | October 20, 2007 at 03:37 PM
And of course I expect YOU, Matt, to host my blog when Levi convinces google to tear down mine :). Of course, that would be done for freedom and stuff like that :D
Posted by: Davide "Gatto Feroce" Inglima | October 22, 2007 at 05:23 AM