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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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I don't think this is a hissy fit. Instead it is a passive aggressive move to show what full compliance would mean.

"You want something stupid? Okay - here's all the stupid you can handle."

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?

Because it's a reminder of the presence of a government that has, at least in theory, the ability to make life suck harder for a long time through sheer stupidity.

Those of us in the U.S. have the privilege of knowing that nothing will actually ever pass (and if it does, the chance of effective enforcement is comically slim). Folks in other countries aren't so lucky. :-)

exactly srl!

because of the situation that day by day is gettin worse for all the italian people... I don't know what people of other states of the world really thinks about our country, I think that to understand all the reasons of what is going on in Italy could be really difficult for people that doesn't lives here...

it's like there is no way to escape from this situation, a very big part of the people in italy are old people that gain informations only from the television, and you know that in italy 3 of the most important channel tv are Berlusconi's proprieties... so the 60%of the popolation konw what he want them to know, and notting else... for example probably tomorrow on the news they doesn't gave importance to wikipedia's advice.

I'm so sorry for my english, I hope you could understand what i'm trying to explain to you.. :(

Your English is far superior to my Italian, so no need to apologize.

I had forgotten about Berlusconi's ownership in the media. That does give him a lot of weight to throw around. Is there anything specific about this law (beyond its idiocy!) that frightens you, or is it just Berlusconi's ability to walk all over the Italian people?

The law is not yet passed, however if it will happen that would be for a little timespan, that would be a good thing to awaken italian people about what the hell is happening in their country :)

If this law goes into effect, site owners will be required to either remove or post corrections to previously posted informations within 48 hours of receiving a request by an allegedly defamed person or company. Corrections will have to be posted with the same visibility as the offending text, no commentary whatsoever and no regard as to whether the corrected information, or the correction, is true or not.

And without a court order.

Under penalty of a fine of up to € 12000.

Not sure how this will affect WP given that it's all hosted in the U.S. including the italian one (right?), but I believe the italian editors might fear to be held responsible individually.

However it does certanly makes scary running a blog, not to mention an online newspaper, as an italian citizen.

I agree that it's a pretty effective form of protest. In fact, I applaud the actions of the editors for bringing to light the issues that are being pushed in the legislature.

Most people are too willfully ignorant about what goes on politically in their countries, and it's only when they are personally affected that they take a stand in the matter. Other sites should have joined in and made it apparent to all italian internet users the effects this law might have on their web experience.

If anything the Google case should make it clear that it's not a safe bargain to simply ignore these types of issues.

Some of their discussion on the mailing lists positions it as a strike in opposition to the proposed law.

It does seem to be generating some coverage in the Italian press, so might be partially successful if that was the objective (we'll see if that discussion does anything to derail the law).

edit: To clarify, "their" is the Italian Wikipedia-editing community, which seems to have voted something like 40-3 among active admins who participated to blackout the encyclopedia. The U.S.-based Wikimedia Foundation wasn't involved. Presumably the Wikimedia Foundation could force it to be turned back on (they own the servers, etc.), but so far are not intervening.

Hissy fits are not unheard-of in the wikiverse.

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