Italian bloggers call for support from around the world to fight blogger-licensing in Italy

Italian bloggers call for support from around the world to fight blogger-licensing in Italy

www.boingboing.net

In the last five months the Italian Parliament has accelerated the legislation against the Internet. Probably because it's the last media that is out of control in Italy after out of seven National TV's 3 are owned by the Prime Minister, 3 are State owned and controlled by the Government (read: Prime Minister), and all major newspapers are financed by the State...

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.beppegrillo.it

I don't know how many of you are informed about the actual "Italian Government VS Internet" situation, but the Italian citizens still concerned about their freedom of speech need all the support they can get.

Cory Doctorow already gave a big boost to our cry for help, maybe ATS can do the same.

Please visit also

www.beppegrillo.it...

you can check Beppe Grillo's blog in English. He is one of Italy’s most famous comedians, who now became one of the few independent voices against the current oppressive regime (and is thus banned from Italian TV).

www.boingboing.net
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by theRoboZ


There appears to be an emerging threat to internet freedoms all around the globe. The Australian government is also seeking to filter the internet ala China under the false claim that it's to protect children from porn etc. Rubbish! Parent's can look after Internet filtering on a PC by PC basis with NetNanny type softwares. There's a bigger agenda in play. This is a sad state of affairs.

I wasn't aware of what is happening in Italy but I will go and check out the blog. Thanks for the heads-up!

IRM

reply to post by theRoboZ

Thank you for sharing this, it is very important to bring this type of stuff to people's attention:
Beppe Grillo is one of the few who are really interested in freedom of information, and he is one of the primary targets of the actions being taken by Berlusconi and his government: they've noticed that the internet can't be controlled as it can be done with TV channels, or newspapers, so they want to limit bloggers (and more in general the internet) that way: but i don't think they will manage to. What they are trying to do has no future, especially because there will always be someone like you that will get concerned at the first signal of something like that happening: we are the first reason they cant win mate. I add the linky to the page where pictures and messages can be submitted
www.beppegrillo.it...

Thanks again for sharing.

Another aspect to this is that a lot of the big print media organisations have been suffering declining revenue, partly due to more people using the internet for news and partly due to falling advertising revenue.
Quite how Berlusconi, a media giant, can get away with blatantly promoting his own business interests is amazing - almost sounds like a dictatorship.

Any censorship of news and open discussion must be fought as it sets a very scary precedent and puts far too much power in the hands of those distributing, and often creating, the news.

Originally posted by InfaRedMan
reply to post by theRoboZ

 

There appears to be an emerging threat to internet freedoms all around the globe. The Australian government is also seeking to filter the internet ala China

The AU government just scrapped the program, officially, a few days ago. Saw it on the news somewhere, but the opposition to it was enormous from the public and the ISPs.

S

I've said it before, and I'll say it here again - I'm proud to have come of age during the 'golden age' of the internet.

I have a feeling that the face of the internet is going to change immensely in the next 10 years.

The parliament in Italy wants to suck more blood from the italian population by putting licensing fees for bloogers now? Wow what a bunch of corrupt criminals. I am in full suport of italian bloggers. Don't give up.

The baby boomers are a revolting blight on this planet - some semblance of humility would go a long way to assuaging us of their vile self indulgence, yet here we sit condescended to and denigrated with flippant disregard and a nonchalant oppression, an almost lackadaisical humiliation of humanity.

The boomers are an entire generation of shame - those amongst this horrendous blight have a onerous duty to rectify this imbalance of cultural repugnance. Not your fault, but your collective shame nonetheless ....

Either way - when you are gone - and you will go even if we light the wick to your ivory retirement villages - it is us who must clean up the melting planet - the dropping waxy refuse of your hedonistic orgy of self indulgence.......grotesque period of humanity - Baby Boomers.

Originally posted by Monger
I've said it before, and I'll say it here again - I'm proud to have come of age during the 'golden age' of the internet.

I have a feeling that the face of the internet is going to change immensely in the next 10 years.

Never was a truer word spoken -

I have great pride as well, however as soemone who was using dial up modems 20 years ago and thought NOTHING of ringing NASA and putting the "phone" straight into the cradle, and haveing spent 20 years hence on the job, I have a sense of duty, and an immense feeling of power, they can do as they will , but there is nothing they can do - they may as well ry and charge me to breathe for the internet is simply the electricity flowing through the cables of this planet now - as soon as things become cramped we will out pace, out manoeuvre, out think and out tech these sonsabitches - they have no chance and it is clearly this lack of understanding, lack of control andlack of power that is driving these worms.

It is indeed true that governments around the world are trying to monitor and regulate the internet and in my view infringe upon our freedom of speech.

The only saving grace is that internet 'types' know much more about the internet and are more web savvy than the government agents charged with regulating it ever will be.

No matter what regulation is put in place, solutions and work-arounds will appear.

We may have to put up with increased CCTV surveillance, harder policing and greater government interference in our lives, but the internet is one battlefield where the government will not and can not win.

You can consider the internet as being 'open source' - no one holds the keys to it to switch it off..

Come on, if ISP's can't even stop people downloading the latest series of Hero's then how the hell do they expect to be able to regulate blogging etc etc...

And even when things go legal, the laws don't work. Pirate Bay anyone? LAUGH MY F******G A*S OFF - kudos to the guys who run that thing. Although, of course, I'd never use it personally - god forbid!

I agree that if their is a 'battle' over the internet one day, the masses will win, but it will be because of quantity over quality. I have no doubt in my mind the most impressive computer prodigies of our modern time are on a federal payroll.

David Smith wrote the Melissa virus in 1999, which forced many corporations such as Microsoft and Lockheed Martin to shut down their email providers to stop the spread of the virus. He accepted a position with the FBI after he was arrested and sentenced to jail. That's just one example.

Originally posted by audas
The baby boomers are a revolting blight on this planet - some semblance of humility would go a long way to assuaging us of their vile self indulgence, yet here we sit condescended to and denigrated with flippant disregard and a nonchalant oppression, an almost lackadaisical humiliation of humanity.

The boomers are an entire generation of shame - those amongst this horrendous blight have a onerous duty to rectify this imbalance of cultural repugnance. Not your fault, but your collective shame nonetheless ....

Either way - when you are gone - and you will go even if we light the wick to your ivory retirement villages - it is us who must clean up the melting planet - the dropping waxy refuse of your hedonistic orgy of self indulgence.......grotesque period of humanity - Baby Boomers.

Oh, come on now. I'm a genXr myself. I remember how the boomers were so critical of the generation before them. Now we find that they're no different than those they demanded to never trust. And I believe that history will prove that my own generation has the same amount of hypocrites in it than the boomers have or the same amount of the generation before them. It's a cycle that perpetuates. The generation after X will make just as many mistakes as the genXs as well.

I don't believe any generation has a moral high ground above the preceding. What is important is that all of us that are still visiting this third dimension in physical form unite and fight the oppression that is bearing down upon us.

I see a lot of grand standing here but I don't see people offering any real solutions to the problem that the original poster of this thread has offered forth.

Should we not be discussing methods of flooding the Italian government or media with dissenting digressions? Should we not be discussing tactics for fighting back? Should we not be organizing for the plight of the Italians right now?

It is action not words that change issues most of the time in my opinion. From the facts that have been presented here on how the Italian media has been monopolized by conflicting interests it would definitely appear that a true wrong is in the process of being committed.

I'm very curious as to what you people think we can do about this? Would a Italian member whose familiar about how to address grievances against their government please step forth?

For example, here in the USA, believe it or not you still can contact your local representative or at least an aid to that person in question and voice your opinion and find out where they stand on the issue at hand. You can find out where they might be holding a meeting on the legislation in question. Then you can organize your friends (or fellow bloggers, or fellow forum members) to make similar calls, or show up and vocalize opposition in person. These steps here are just for starters.

I'd really like to see a more constructive discussion on action not complaints. From discussions of actions we can expect physical actions to perhaps follow (realistic ones) and then perhaps change. Is this too steep a request?

The Australians would have appeared to have done just that. Now it is the Italians turn. I'm willing to support them but let's discuss how we can do this.

Finally, I'd like to state that I'm not saying that any other types of protests,complaints, etc. here should cease. I'm just hoping that we cas think up some solutions here that will help the Italians and ultimately all of us in the end.

Originally posted by Saganite

Originally posted by InfaRedMan
reply to post by theRoboZ

 

There appears to be an emerging threat to internet freedoms all around the globe. The Australian government is also seeking to filter the internet ala China

The AU government just scrapped the program, officially, a few days ago. Saw it on the news somewhere, but the opposition to it was enormous from the public and the ISPs.

S

Beautiful. A friendly FU from the people of Australia. Wish I knew how I could have joined in. "BOO boo, down with internet 2."

It's refreshing to read a thread that has nothing to do with the US for a change, we need more of a world view here.

I'm genuinely shocked by this, licensed blogger, what the hell !!!!, it's just people talking !!!

Did I really just read this:

draft a law.....that will oblige the ISPs to black out a site.....at the request of the Minister of the Interior for crimes of opinion

[edit on 13-3-2009 by Retseh]

I believe it's only a matter of time until the Internet gets fully corporative and surveilled. How long will it be "ours"? Which other media lets you participate in such an active way, sometimes even against its very founders/funders? This, regrettably, can't go on forever. Unsanctioned internet will be history someday, and we'll have to find a new way to communicate. Which will be harder, because even as great as communications are today, we're segregated. Internet is going to be the 21th century TV, something to dumb down people and a source of (then) "healthy" entertaintment.

Hardly any responses to an otherwise excellent find.

Can you imagine how many pages this would have run to if the story was about US oppression of bloggers instead of Italian.

Pretty much gives the game away about this site n'est ce pas?

reply to post by InfaRedMan


To me this is just a smokescreen.

If you want to keep porn from children, then there needs to be a porn speficif address. Problem solved.

.gov
.net
.com
.xxx


I am not a techy so maybe it can't be done. But it seems simple to me.

Have all porn designated xxx and all other content can be left alone.