Will Italy Lose The Web?
by
on October 26, 2007,
Though it never made the ‘big' news, Italy's latest foray into the bloggosphere is indicative of some rather strange thinking from their leaders. Prime Minister Romano Prodi's undersecretary Franco Levi composed the text to a law that requires anyone with a website or blog to register with the ROC (register of the Communication Authority). Site and blog owners will also be required to submit documentation, pay a tax and provide a letter of intent as to making any money. The law could effectively stifle any blog or other website that does not to the political line or else.
Old Fogies or Oligarchs?
Bernhard Warner renders a scathing criticism of the Italian government in the Times Online, which I do not disagree with altogether. It would appear that the government of one of the coolest (and funny) countries on the planet is stuck in some kind of time freeze. Warner calls the legislation "a geriatric assault" on Italy's bloggers, but I think the assault comes from a far older malady - fear and ignorance. It does seem like Italian lawmakers, and those from other countries, are backpedaling in fear of Web 2.0's new freedom of expression element. China, Taiwan and any number of other nations have been in the news with one issue or another. I am not so sure gagging expression is so much an age specific tendency (as Warner suggests) or a "fear of change" issue. Even young people are afraid of change that - look at Google vs. anything new.
Small - Big News
Blogs from LucaFiligheddu.com and Boing Boing to the Times and Newsvine - made comment on this relatively significant news - with Warren's article lending the most concern and weight. I find it somewhat interesting that none of the major blogs seemed to take notice. Perhaps the most notable and affected blogger is Beppe Grillo who says that if the law is passed it will mean the end of the Internet in Italy! Even if this a sensationalistic assertion Grillo is a well established and important blogger and I would have thought more people would have taken notice. Grillo seems genuinely concerned and asserts that if worse come to worse he will pack up his blog and move to a democratic county.
Next - A Ministry of Thought
Grillo and other Italian site owners should be concerned, as should the rest of us. Italian people are really dynamic, creative and fun people - this world 1.0 suppressive mentality is actually quite offensive to me and many others I know. It is actually difficult to believe that intelligent government leaders (outside repressive regimes) would even consider such primitive - supressive tactics.
For roughly 8000 years human beings have tried to sluff off the chains of those who have stifled and squashed every thought from creativity to idealism - it just seems like it is about time every person had the right to "be" in a true sense without figureheads to do their bidding. This counter progressive mentality should have a Web 2.0 name - let's call it "scaredy cat regulation" for lack of a better term. If leaders are not smart enough or eloquent enough to counter opinion fairly - perhaps it is time to find better, smarter and less fearful leaders? At least, the first ministry anyone creates should be one that can think.
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Svetlana Gladkova
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
Just a sign of what’s to come. History always repeats itself, just different players on the stage at different times.
And then nothing is learned, and we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. I have had a pulse on the erosion of personal sovereignty for close to ten years, and have seen this coming.
Not that there is much solace in knowing. I have decided there is no place to run to get away from it. The thought police, sadly, are just a cog in the wheel of the technology paradigm shift upon us.
They actually think they are doing the right thing.
Ouch! Definitely not looking good for those who live in Italy. As for people taking notice of Grillo, if he’s not on the A-List of bloggers chances are, no one cares. The only things that matter in the blogosphere are those things said by A-Listers (apparently)
I hope the residences of Italy stand up and fight this legislation.
Thank you for spreading the word about this.
I read about this a few weeks ago and it is very scary. Those of us who own sites already have to pay enough money just to get the site off the ground and keep it live, a tax on top of that?
I expect that if this goes through all those bloggers in Italy will just “offshore” their sites.
Steve, a few weeks ago they had a failed attempt to put such a law into action. I am not aware of the reasons that caused the failure but it looks like this time the government is pretty straightforward about the law - no one in the government objected at all.
Oooo dear me..
I’m glad I shifted my business from Milan to London 2 years ago..
However, like many of the laws in Italy I’m wondering how much weight or actual obeying would take place.
In my experience almost all the laws are somewhat “grey” and often never even enforced, unless the stakes are BIG.
Italy is a nation of TAX madness, everything has a tax to the extent that most people dodge it to the best of their ability.
I can forsee some dodgy back-room deals being struck on this one, which is exactly how Italy works, always has and always will.
Someone always has a lever in Italy, for everything.
Thanks for all your great feedback and comments. I must admit I was really amazed that Italy would have such issues. This made me feel rather out of touch with current events to a degree. One expects repressive or very closed regimes to have a perceived need to control content - but Italy?
These comments add great insight into what many of us might not consider backwards thinking in modern countries. Sometimes I think we have some very far but are still stuck in the same ruts we have always been in; fear, ignorance, power lust, greed and just plain idiocy. I hope the Italian people raise hell to be honest. Registered bloggers - gimme a break.
Such silliness. I wonder how they would even try to enforce that. Given that most of the blogging servers are here in the USA.
Yes, silliness, you are absolutely right here. But the problem is the professional bloggers usually prefer some hosted versions and on the local blogging scenes they usually prefer their national domains. Fore example, here in Russia our top bloggers own domains in the .ru zone and often they use local hosting providers.
Certainly, those people only starting to blog mostly use blogger.com or wordpress.com or other similar services for their first blogs. And for them such a limitation will not make any difference. But the problem for Italy is that those local companies trying to build local blogging platforms will need to host them abroad, too and it will prevent the overall development of web services in Italy (or any other country that will attempt to implement such a law).