After Berlusconi Attack, Italy Considers Web Censorship

An anonymous reader writes "The Italian government has proposed introducing new restrictions on the Internet after a Facebook fan page for the man who allegedly attacked Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Sunday drew almost 100,000 users in under 48 hours. However, the planned clampdown on Internet hate speech sparked a heated debate over censorship and freedom of expression, leading Interior Minister Roberto Maroni to execute a partial U-turn."

Re:Please Do It, Italy!

[sakdoctor]

Wishful thinking. I have yet to see a backlash against proposed or actual censorship, even in countries that have a strong freedom of speech culture.

This little blip will not bring down Musso^H^H^HBerlusconi.

Re:Control

[migla]

On my to-watch-list, there's a recent-ish documentary about Berlusconis Italy, titled "Videocracy". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1500516/ [imdb.com]

http://www.atmo.se/film-and-tv/videocracy/ [www.atmo.se] :

In a videocracy the key to power is the image.

In Italy one man only has kept the domination of the image over three entire decades. As a TV-magnate and then as Presidente, Silvio Berlusconi has created a perfect system of TV-entertainment and politics. [...] ...a remarkable story, born out of the scary reality of TV-republic Italy, a country where the step from TV-showgirl to Minister for Gender Equality is only natural.

Coming soon to a festival (or internet) near you!

Re:If this were a nobody that was attacked

[rolfwind]

The Patriot Act is intended to focus on groups of people organizing to carry out a planned action. It doesn't do anything for single crazy acting on their own.

And yet the FBI had plenty of tips about the hijackers before the actual attack.

What allowed Nidal Hasan to kill people was rampant political correctness.

Perhaps it was simply the same bloated bureacracy that fail before 9/11, which got warning signs but the signals got lost in the chain of command because they're too busy spying on the emails of millions of others.

When is an act terrorism and when is it just simple murder?

Is the shooting at Virginia Tech terrorism? Or is it only terrorism if the perpetrator is Muslim?

Terrorism is a tactic designed to invoke a specific psychological reaction.

The way past US leadership uses it is a catch-all phrase to grab power:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW8Bj1upbJQ [youtube.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW8Bj1upbJQ [youtube.com]

Whenever I see a knee-jerk reaction....

[ibsteve2u]

Whenever I see a knee-jerk reaction by a government, the first thought that pops into my head is "Oh, my. Are they nuclear?"

Good on you, Italy

[Gadget_Guy]

Good on you, Italy. At least you are being honest about why you would want to censor the net. None of the usual "terrorist pedophile" nonsense. Just a nice, simple message to the populous: "we don't want to hear from you, please go away".

However, since I am against censorship, I might have to reconsider the answer to my Simpson quote [slashdot.org] regarding asteroid targets from earlier today.

Re:It's All About CONTROL!

[VincenzoRomano]

Freedom is not for you is you are not someone. That's it.

Don't forget the "Italian Crackdown" in 1992.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the "Italian Crackdown" in 1992.

To fight against crime, police busted all italian fidonet BBS.
122 arrest and 159 BBS confiscated.

Ref: http://www.altx.com/interzones2/italy/crackdown.html

Regard,
Dan