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Wikipedia shuts down Italian site because of Berlusconi's "Wiretapping Act"

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Re: Wikipedia shuts down Italian site because of Berlusconi's "Wiretapping Act"

#21

Post by ErrantX »

twhaples wrote: post #20
ErrantX wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The language Wikipedia's a fairly autonomous (which is good, FWIW, except when it goes wrong) with the Foundation trusting them to follow the core community ideals As to how they did this; MediaWiki has a Commons.js that is editable by admins. They stuck some JS in to redirect every page to their statement. The content is all there; just "hidden". Turning off JS will allow browsing the site (I think). EDIT: you'll al…

Jimmy Wales just described it (in a Facebook post) as "Wikipedia Italy is on strike against an idiotic proposed law". While Jimmy Wales is no longer synonymous with Wikipedia governance, his implicit endorsement of the strike is definitely Something. Though people are fighting on the mailing list and calling for all the Italian sysops be desysopped.

Yes; he just posted to that effect on his en.wiki talk page.

Disappointing, I feel. What next; English Wikipedia suspended till the US government sort out copyright laws?

Worrying precedent!

Re: Wikipedia shuts down Italian site because of Berlusconi's "Wiretapping Act"

#22

Post by _delirium »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #16
ErrantX wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't they just shut down wikipedia as a whole then? This is an action purely by the Italian community. The foundation were not even aware of it till a few hours ago :) I see no reason why they should abide by this law It's a protest against an upcoming law that ma lead to Italian editors being fined for not editing Wikipedia to the demands of companies/people.

tomp asked what I think is a crucial question, that you didn't address: what does the language -specific wiki have to do with it? Wouldn't the English-language wiki be subject to the very same law? If so, how does downing the Italian version protect wikipedia?

The practical reason I can see is that: 1) a large portion of Wikipedians from Italy are worried about the consequences of this law for Italian Wikipedians and wish to stage a protest; and 2) editors from Italy constitute an overwhelming majority of editors on the Italian-language Wikipedia, and are therefore able to stage a protest there, but not elsewhere (since they don't constitute an overwhelming enough majority of the other languages' Wikipedias to get consensus agreement for a blackout).

So far it seems the Foundation, which ultimately owns the servers and could intervene if it deemed the move contrary to the organization's principles, is standing on the sidelines. In part, that might be because the consensus is so strong; it wouldn't be overruling a handful of rogue admins, but a large portion of the Italian Wikipedia's editors (straw-poll here: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Comma...), which it prefers not to do unless absolutely necessary. A number of people in the organization, speaking in their private capacity, appear to also be fairly sympathetic to the protest, and not inclined to overturn it in a heavy-handed manner (perhaps there will be some informal negotiation to bring the site back online without condemning or officially "overturning" the protest).

Re: Wikipedia shuts down Italian site because of Berlusconi's "Wiretapping Act"

#23

Post by nefe »

harryf wrote: post #14
hugh3 wrote: post #5

Now wait a minute, is this a law or a proposed law? If the former, they're complying. If the latter, they're having a hissy fit.

Well it seems like their trying to prevent a proposed law from becoming an actual law. Whether the threat is significant enough to warrant this action, I can't judge but it is a pretty effective form of protest, you have to admit, given that wikipedia is largely taken for granted these days.

I'm italian so excuse me for my terrible english.

in the next 24hours this proposal law will be approved or not in base of the choose of the parlament, that is very influenced(?) by Berlusconi, for this reason italian writers of wikipedia had written the advice, for make the italian people think about what is happening. I'm so scared.

Re: Wikipedia shuts down Italian site because of Berlusconi's "Wiretapping Act"

#24

Post by Iv »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #13
ErrantX wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This came to the attention on the foundation wide discussion list earlier today (I think this is the first time the foundation were aware of it too...) & I've been digging into it. The law they are protesting basically says as follows: - Any party can post a notice to the owner/publisher of a website or blog etc. telling them to correct information (and provide the new information they require) and this must be done…

The same law exists in France, as far as I can tell; I happen to have encountered that due to signing up for a hosting provider (gandi.net) originally based in France, which noted that particular law in their terms. I can see how such laws could seem like a good idea to someone completely unfamiliar with how the Internet operates ("Someone is wrong on the Internet!"). As it stands, it sounds like a good reason to nev…

If you have a source about the French part I am really very interested. There is a similar law but it requires a judgment of a court of justice, it is a law about public slander and it usually only requires that the "attacked" party is given the ability to answer in the same medium.

Re: Wikipedia shuts down Italian site because of Berlusconi's "Wiretapping Act"

#25

Post by muuh-gnu »

Italian editors may have done this as a stunt to merely alarm italian readers of what a law may be comming, but the "italian language" wikipedia, even if probably mostly populated by italian citizens, is in no way connected to or obliged to abide by laws of italy, the state. There are probably millions of italian speakers who are not italian citizens, they are affected by this stunt even though they are in no way affected by this silly law.

In my view, this is italian citizens effectively seizing italian language wikipedia to push their particular political interests, which apply only to italy. I also think that the foundation should not allow particular "countries" to effectively seize language editions of the wikipedia and enforce their particular laws on all readers and contributors who happen to speak that language.

Re: Wikipedia shuts down Italian site because of Berlusconi's "Wiretapping Act"

#26

Post by elliottcarlson »

nefe wrote: post #23
harryf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it seems like their trying to prevent a proposed law from becoming an actual law. Whether the threat is significant enough to warrant this action, I can't judge but it is a pretty effective form of protest, you have to admit, given that wikipedia is largely taken for granted these days.

I'm italian so excuse me for my terrible english. in the next 24hours this proposal law will be approved or not in base of the choose of the parlament, that is very influenced(?) by Berlusconi, for this reason italian writers of wikipedia had written the advice, for make the italian people think about what is happening. I'm so scared.

Not that a law like this should exist, but why does it scare you?

Re: Wikipedia shuts down Italian site because of Berlusconi's "Wiretapping Act"

#27

Post by tedunangst »

eric-hu wrote: post #19
CWuestefeld wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tomp asked what I think is a crucial question, that you didn't address: what does the language -specific wiki have to do with it? Wouldn't the English-language wiki be subject to the very same law? If so, how does downing the Italian version protect wikipedia?

Italian law is very unlikely to extend outside the borders of Italy. I see this as analogous to why Google can serve up content about Tiananmen Square outside of China without any repercussions

http://www.dailytech.com/Italy+Convicts+Three+Google+Execs+f...

Re: Wikipedia shuts down Italian site because of Berlusconi's "Wiretapping Act"

#28

Post by savramescu »

muuh-gnu wrote: post #25

Italian editors may have done this as a stunt to merely alarm italian readers of what a law may be comming, but the "italian language" wikipedia, even if probably mostly populated by italian citizens, is in no way connected to or obliged to abide by laws of italy, the state. There are probably millions of italian speakers who are not italian citizens, they are affected by this stunt even though they are in no way aff…

The flaw with your argument is that by not stopping it here it'll snowball and affect more systems, more countries etc. This should be stopped now, otherwise France will be next then Germany than US and all of a sudden we'll all move to China.

Re: Wikipedia shuts down Italian site because of Berlusconi's "Wiretapping Act"

#29

Post by notahacker »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #13
ErrantX wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This came to the attention on the foundation wide discussion list earlier today (I think this is the first time the foundation were aware of it too...) & I've been digging into it. The law they are protesting basically says as follows: - Any party can post a notice to the owner/publisher of a website or blog etc. telling them to correct information (and provide the new information they require) and this must be done…

The same law exists in France, as far as I can tell; I happen to have encountered that due to signing up for a hosting provider (gandi.net) originally based in France, which noted that particular law in their terms. I can see how such laws could seem like a good idea to someone completely unfamiliar with how the Internet operates ("Someone is wrong on the Internet!"). As it stands, it sounds like a good reason to nev…

If the scope of it is as described I can't see how anyone s would think its a good idea, even if they support the general principle behind defamation laws and assume the internet works the same way as any other form of publishing. Unless they happened to be a public figure constantly in the press for consorting with prostitutes etcetera, of course.

If its scope is as described in the Wikipedia article it's akin to forcing newspapers to follow up every front page Berlusconi expose with a front page statement from Berlusconi that it didn't happen. Would the Italian public stand for that?

Re: Wikipedia shuts down Italian site because of Berlusconi's "Wiretapping Act"

#30

Post by fosk »

I understand this may sound inappropriate by some of you.

I'm italian, I live in the US, and I'm deeply updated on the political and cultural changes that we're witnessing in Italy. The proposed law we're talking about is basically against any kind of interception (mostly phone calls) legally used by police and public prosecutors to arrest criminals and mafia members. This is scaring the italian government simply because the prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been brought in trial thanks to some interceptions (the sex scandals, lately).

Apart compromising thousands of trials by helping lots of criminals to not be arrested and uncovered, this law also includes a specific paragraph stating that any kind of publication publicly distributed referring to an individual (like on a newspaper, blog or wikipedia) can be deleted upon the request of the offended part without proving that his motivations are true. Let's say that a Wikipedia article states that Berlusconi has been accused for something, he can, thanks to this law, ask the removal of the information even if they're true and he's wrong. This clearly threatens the freedom of press in Italy, and this is why what Wikipedia is doing, if put in the current italian political context, can be not only justified but also approved.

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