Hmm, technically you are right, the wikipedia is in US, so its "just only" the Wikipedians who are in peril.
However they would be really under serious pressure. Even now, without any specialised law, Italian Wikipedia had some specifics fighting against lawsuite imposed by politician (and his son) in a case, where they felt damaged (while there was technically not ground for it) and specifics of the Italian law allowed to fill the suite against members of Wikimedia Italia !!! They forced the page in question down. And the president of Wikimedia Italia is personally held responsible by the politicians and the suite HER for tremendous amount of money! In reality this law would force everyone in Italia underground, and I can only speculate what would happen, if the pages on Italian Wikipedia would not comply with the law - what would happn the original authors - listed in the history of the page. Unlike as in China, where anyone writing to it from mainland China is expecting troubles from the start and so he might be writing there anonymously from the start, through proxy and similarly, in Italia there is lively comunity of Wikipedians, meeting freely in daylight - What would happen to them? There is huge Wikimedia Italia (all the people are potentially targets as already once shown) And what would be response of the Board of T (WM) - would our higher ups see the case of Italia similarly to China, if Italian goverment would block acces to Wikipedia in Italia? This really is not nice precedent. I don't like it at all. (the best description of the situation from the perspective of the Italians I saw sofar was note by Pietro Baroni, I incude it bellow:) ****************************** Pietro Baroni Says: October 4th, 2011 at 21:40 I am from Italy, and I can explain exactly what this Bill is all about. Let’s say somebody writes something I don’t like on a website, any website. Well, in that case, if this bill is approved, I can make the admins of that website remove that statement within 48 hours. Law would impose that to them; and not only they would need to remove that thing, but they would have to replace it with whatever the “offended” person suggest, giving it the same visibility, graphics and importance as the old statement. All this in 48 hours, by law. So I think italian Wikipedia is simply saying “If things will go that way, the basic purpose of wikipedia could not be achieved: wikipedia would not be free anymore, so we are just giving it up, hoping that things will not turn that way. Especially because wikipedia has its own system for solving these problems, and it’s working really good.” So I don’t think they’re using Wikipedia for a political purpose, but just to say that if the bill gets approved, wikipedia would not be useful anymore, so it would have to die. ************************* With regards Petr Skupa [[User:Reo On]] On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:48 PM, Rob Schnautz <[email protected]>wrote: > Woah. I just checked it.wikipedia.org because it sounded like a > hoax...it's > real. Does the law apply to website providers or to those who contribute to > the website? If it's the former, you're right; Wikipedia is in Florida. But > if it's the latter, then Wikipedia is most certainly affected by the law. > > Unfortunate indeed. > > Bob > > On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:40 AM, Daniel R. Tobias <[email protected]> wrote: > > > There have been a bunch of items in my Twitter feed about how the > > Italian Wikipedia has shut down in response to a proposed repressive > > law regarding mandatory takedowns of allegedly defamatory online > > material in Italy. I have some problems with such a move, as it sets > > a precedent of having a particular language edition of Wikipedia tied > > to an uncomfortable degree with the politics of one country just > > because that's the primary place the language is spoken. It's always > > been true that the separate editions of Wikipedia are by language, > > not country. The Chinese Wikipedia keeps operating despite the > > repressive censorship of China, and if that country chooses to block > > it, that's their problem. English Wikipedia doesn't belong to > > England, or America, or any other English-speaking country, though > > the fact that the primary servers are in the USA does force it to > > comply to U.S. law. > > > > Unless there are servers in Italy, the Italian Wikipedia isn't > > compelled to follow any Italian law, though there could be > > consequences for any Italy-based participants if they don't, > > including the possibility of individuals there being held responsible > > for what they write or fail to take down, or possible mandatory > > blockage of the site in that country if they choose to go the "Great > > Firewall" route. > > > > I remember the German Wikipedia being affected at one point by a > > court injunction, but that only shut down a redirected .de domain, > > not the site itself as a subdomain of US-registered wikipedia.org. > > > > > > -- > > == Dan == > > Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ > > Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ > > Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/ > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
