Italian Wikipedia Goes Out In Protest Against The Bill ~ TechNeem

In the true spirit of activism online, through the Italian Wikipedia has voluntarily dismantled to protest a bill in Parliament. The law ("DDL intercettazioni" roughly translated as wiretapping Act) require each site to publish within 48 hours of a correction or comment on any content found the claimant "to the detriment of his image" , as they say. If that sounds vague, broad and heavy, because it is.

If this law was passed, Wikipedia and other sites have made new and unsolicited "corrections" to any content deemed unacceptable by anyone. This content should be shown regardless of offensive content or "correction." It does not take an expert to see that this law is contrary to the principles of truth and openness.

In the event that it is not clear, let me describe an example. Said one government official has been charged to visit a prostitute. If it must be reported on the news website, and wrote in his page on Wikipedia, would he or his representative be able to submit a "correction" would be required by law to be displayed with this information in 48 hours, regardless of what he says or accuracy of these allegations.

There are already laws on libel and defamation to protect books, and this part of the law (which seems to have little to do with telephone tapping) seems to be just a gift to the highly visible and often criticized the class of persons composed of politicians, celebrities and so on.

To be more specific (without getting too deep into it, I am not versed in the intricacies of Italian politics), the law is seen as a tool for people that Italy celebrates the new Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The many salacious charges against him would be required by law to be associated with any official comment from the PM, his office or his lawyers.

Wikipedia is careful to stress that the idea is to offer them a free encyclopedia, complete and neutral which is open to feedback from all parties. This Act would eliminate the neutrality of the resource that have worked to create, and so Wikipedia.it users have decided to remove it completely.

At that time, the Italian Wikipedia is no longer able to continue providing the service over the years has been helpful for you and you expect to have at the moment. As it is, the page you want, still exists and is only hidden, but the risk is that we will soon have to remove it really.

Wikipedia is actually based here in the U.S. and foreign versions of the community and managed locally, to some extent. The Takedown on the Italian Wikipedia has not been proposed or made by the Wikimedia Foundation, but they wrote a short blog to support the effort.

The Wikimedia Foundation is that our volunteers are difficult in Italy recently wrote "DDL intercettazione" (or listen to Bill) Bill in Italy. This bill would hinder the work of projects like Wikipedia: open, run by volunteers, and collaboration spaces dedicated to sharing high quality knowledge, not to mention the possibility that all Internet users to participate in democracy the possibilities of freedom of expression.

I hope the Wikipedians, as it apparently is called here in the United States would be able to take the same measure, but also hope they never needed. Personally, I support this strong but peaceful demonstration in Internet activism, and I'm sure many of our readers do too.