Regarding recent events on Italian Wikipedia
Today the volunteers of the Italian Wikipedia community made the decision to replace all of Italian Wikipedia with a message to readers about a law (PDF in Italian) being discussed before the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian parliament. The message outlines the viewpoints of the Italian Wikipedia community, and provides details about the proposed bill, and how it threatens the ability to openly collaborate in the sharing of knowledge. This is certainly a decision the Italian Wikipedia community did not take lightly.
The Wikimedia Foundation stands with our volunteers in Italy who are challenging the recently drafted “DDL intercettazioni” (or Wiretapping Bill) bill in Italy. This bill would hinder the work of projects like Wikipedia: open, volunteer-driven, and collaborative spaces dedicated to sharing high-quality knowledge, not to mention the ability for all users of the internet to engage in democratic, free speech opportunities.
Wikipedians the world over pride themselves on their ability to rapidly remove false information from their project. Wikipedia has established methods to receive complaints or concerns from individuals or organizations and a strong system exists to remove incorrect or false information, and if necessary to remove complete articles in an effort to prevent vandalism. For Wikipedians, there is no value nor need for this proposed legislation.
The Wikimedia Foundation supports the rights of all people to access our free knowledge content everywhere in the world, and we equally support the work of our editors to collaborate in the production of this free knowledge without the spectre of sanctioned punishment or attacks towards their work.
Jay Walsh, Communications
Just to be clear. Every active user of wikipedia in Italy can be persecuted by law “ddl intercettazioni” if somebody finds it annoying and there will not be any impartial authority to judge the content of denounce. This is just ridicolous and not democratic. NO CONSPIRACY. We need help in Italy to bring the democracy back.
The whole of Wikipedia (along with many other websites) is premised on a political idea – that freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and honest reporting of facts are rights hard fought for and of benefit to humanity. These ideas are common but not universal, yet editors across the world work every day towards them in virtually all countries.
Our whole existence as a series of websites is a statement of massive support for the views expressed by these rights, as opposed to the view that free speech is dangerous, heresy, or anything else. International law means that you cannot any longer really say “this affects Italy but nowhere else”. If editors in the country affected have agreed this law makes their mission and support unfeasible, then the country has the right to have that opinion shown to them in a way that politicians will understand and the concern be received.
Should WMF endorse? Is the action too strong? Does WMF’s response actually matter? At the least people will look to WMF for an opinion. WMF is an educational foundation that is predicated on a political view (on freedom of expression), and with internal policies and US law both requiring a high level of separation between charitable body and editing individuals. The response reply states that this is a decision by editors which WMF views from outside, and for which it expresses support both as a principle-based issue, and a local “good-faith” community stance. It’s little different than EEF issuing a statement of support for some matter affecting freedom of expression, or WWF issuing a statement of support for some matter affecting conservation.
I am fairly sure that if the action of Italian wikipedia editors was seen as undermining our mission or taken in bad faith, it would not have had this response.
Though this action of some Italian speakers (and not “The Italian language”) shall be for only a few hours or days, it’s a bad action. The entire Italian language Wikipedia is taken as a hostage by a group of users, and the threats of the proposed bill (still in discussion for two years and a few months…) do not give any right to anyone to act as a kind of “terrorist”.
I noticed, last night, different views by renowned people in the “Wikimedia world” and some were interesting. Especially Ms Gardner’s sentences, on Foundation-l:
1°) “It seems obvious though that the proposed law would hurt freedom of
expression in Italy, and therefore it’s entirely reasonable for the Italian
Wikipedians to oppose it. The Wikimedia Foundation will support their
position.” with no word to support the way chosen by ***some*** Italian speakers for their protest.
2°) “The question of whether blocking access to Wikipedia is the best possible
way to draw people’s attention to this issue is of course open for debate
and reasonable people can disagree.”: this sentence shall mean that it’s imposiible for Foundation staff and Board to clearly support the way (“hostage crisis”) chosen by some Italian speakers, though there is a large understanding of the Italian government’s threats.
3°) ”My understanding is that the decision was taken via a good community process.” I strongly disagree with this sentence, because the poll was very short and because the messages shown on all Italian language Wikipedia pages are a huge lie, with the signature “Gli utenti di Wikipedia”, as if the whole contributors had approved the way of blackout.
4°) “Regardless, what’s done is done, for the moment.” or, in my opinion, “let’s look at the wind direction”.
I think that if WMF staff and Board support Italian contributors fears, they also have to clearly condemn the means used, because this blackout shall be seen, by some users, as a kind of “terrorism”.
I’m Italian too, and I can confirm what Pietro and Massimo said above, I want to highlight the fact that if the bill will be approved for wikipedia.it will become impossible to write anithing about any person who is alive or any group wich includes a person who is alive. I think with this ‘strike’ wikipedia.it simply fights for its right to exist
I think those who live outside Italy are (blisfully) unaware of the impending censorship situation, and so are finding it hard to appreciate the wikipedie.it “strike”. It’s also a reflection of the political / free press / censorship situation as a whole, which really is becoming quite serious.
Hi everyone, just to make it clear, I do not feel that what it.wikipedia.org is doing can ever qualify as political activism. The content of the bill provides technical problems to every individual, organization or company that want to publish any kind of information on the web. As censorship prevents the sharing of information, culture and discussion on the web, it is impossible to make wikipedia work.
This is not a bill, but an act of repression that turns Italy into a proper dictatorship, and every individual or group that are deprived of their constitutional freedom are entitled to protest censorship.
Would you run wikipedia knowing that everyday a potentially huge number of pages could result in significantly expensive fines (each one no less than 7500 euros)?
Hi all, I’m from Italy too and agree both with Massimo and Pietro. I just want to suggest to other users, from other counries, who see the wikipedia “shutdown” as a political protest, a similar landscape: imagine to have the prime minister of your country involved in mafia, payoff, corruption, being one of the richest and powerful and influential soubjects in european economy, in politic, in media communications having not only control over the statal TV stations (being his party the govern itself) but owning, through his familiars, all the other most important tv stations of your country, and beign recently involved in pimping and all sort of illegal activities.
ok now imagine him trying to keep himself away from jail, trying to aviod all of his voters and public opinion to know about his currently going trials.
how would he stop everyone from posting on a thousand-clicked-time-per-day web site and every other blog, web jounal and webzine the details or simply the news about him and his fight with the law?
simple:
passing a bill which will not only be an assurance of controlling every source of information from your politic counterpart or from “neutral” sources, but it will surely argue everyone from posting something that could take him into “problems” with this kind of political monster.
so this is NOT A POLITICAL act, is a SOCIAL PROTEST against no political parts but against PEOPLE who wants to control what is the most important source of progress for humanity since the writing has been used: the INFORMATION.
sorry for my bad english.
Another Italian here. I am pretty shocked by the negative comments previously posted, but I think that probably is because it is quite hard to understand the mediatic situation in Italy. Actually, we are experiencing a censorship in all the aspects of the public information. It is ways above the political parties, and much more severe.
The gonna-be-approved bill will destroy the probably last “free” channel of information. That should be a really bad thing in another country, but in Italy it will become a real disaster.
Some days ago (and I think it is related with what is happening on Wikipedia) an Italian Singer attacked with his lawyers another wiki site (NONciclopedia, a satiric but inoffensive wiki, the italian version of UNcyclopedia), and now it is in a serious danger. If it will continue like this, it.wikipedia will have seriously to close.
It is prett hard to believe what we are experiencing in italy, even for us who live there.
Thanks for your time.
I give all my support to Italian Wikipedia editors in this action. If you think there is something else that can be done just explain it. I am sure that many people will join to help.
I’m from Italy as well. I stand by the decisions of the Italian Wikipedia volunteers. The point is not using Wikipedia as means of political pressure or not. It’s about the very existence of Wikipedia as it is now. Wikipedia has already, by constitution, a way to regulate and dismiss inaccurate content.
The point of this Bill is not to eliminate inaccurate or wrong content, but the content some people find offensive for themselves, even if the affirmation is true and well documented.
One of the principles of Wikipedia is the Neutral Point of View: with this Bill it will be impossible to maintain it! Everyone will be able to force his/her point of view in any page, provided he/she states the content is prejudicial or harmful to their dignity…
Immagine you are writing a blog about pizza and you say pizza is the most common food in Italy. A pasta producer reads it and reports it to the police. You can either write in you blog “pizza is the most common food in Italy as well as pasta” or have you blog closed. I mad a silly example… Immagine you are writing a blog on mafia, politics, economics…
@Ramirez: do you have an idea of what is happening here?
A note: the Italian wikipedia is not special in any way, except for the fact that most of its editors are from Italy. The law would apply to text inserted by any Italian editor on any Wikipedia, or even to text inserted by a foreign editor residing on Italian soil. This is nothing new; Italians cannot legally upload fair-use content to the English wikipedia, for example.
This means that in theory the law could be applied to any website, including non-Italian versions of Wikipedia, if the offended person could prove that the offending text was inserted by an Italian editor, or simply from Italy (e.g. based on an IP address). The editor then might be liable to fines up to several thousand euros unless they comply—which of course they cannot. Of course, it’s more likely that the offended person doesn’t even know that non-Italian Wikipedias exist, but still a theoretical possibility exists.
@Josh: this is not about defending yourself. It is about forbidding Wikipedians from ever removing your own view of the facts, without having to provide any proof that you are stating the truth.
Ironically, ALREADY with the current laws, Wikimedia Italia and its president Frieda, are already involved (since 2009) in a serious and absurd legal process, for alleged defamation! The “victim” is an editor of a newspaper and a right-wing politician ,gh. Cfr. : http://www.fcvg.it/?p=360
PS: sorry for bad english
Sono un utente italiano di Wikipedia – che ha anche contribuito a creare alcune pagine – e condivido il commento di Martinez, secondo cui Wikipedia non dovrebbe essere strumentalizzata. Parlando con alcuni utenti più esperti di Wikipedia sul canale IRC, ai quali ho rivolto alcune critiche – in particolare quella di aver bloccato Wikipedia senza darne preventivo annuncio (dal momento che paragonano con spavalderia il blocco ad uno sciopero, ma la legge prescrive che per uno sciopero sia dato adeguato preavviso, specie per un servizio di utilità pubblia) – mi sono reso conto che c’è molta disorganizzazione, e che il direttivo centrale di Wikipedia dovrebbe intervenire in maniera molto più incisiva.
Perché io, utente di Wikipedia, non posso conoscere chi ha bloccato Wikipedia? Perché non ho potuto esprimere il mio dissenso o assenso al blocco? perché il blocco non è stato deciso collettivamente, democraticamente? sono domande che necessitano ancora di una risposta…
Errata corrige: pubblica* [5° rigo]
Just a moment ladies and genltemen. Wikipedia is about to tell the truth, and document everything it says. Furthermore, it MUST be polite and neutral. If the content of Italian wikipedia is truthfull, documented and polite there is no, really NO REASON for italian justice to take any action. If it does, this is CENSORSHIP! In this impossible case the whole wikipedia community will support italian counterparts of course without any hesitation.
BUT, the protest and shut-down of Italian wikipedia BEFORE any formal procedure is a biased, anacceptalbe, super-duperPOV disgusting completely political action and a severe irreversible damage of Wikipedia’s basic principles. It is the greatest stupidity ever seen in this project. I suggest the banning of all italian sysops responsible for this madness, immediate restore of italian wikipedia, and an extensive survey to understand what mistakes lead us to this catastrophy as soon as possible. We must never allow again a group of idiots who want to pracise politics to promote external interests via wikipedia.
I am terribly ashamed about that, it insults everything I and all of us have done and written in wikipedia and at this moment I feel that all the time I spent here is a just a loss of time. I would never expect that my donations here would be a means of politics and syndicalism. I have already accepted the capitalistic exploitation of my work, but I would never allow the political exploitation, THAT’S ENOUGH!!!
I’m Italian and I agree with Massimo and Pietro.
Hoch lebe der Belusconismus!
You gentlemen who are believing that the editors are using italian Wikipedia for a political protest: I’ll be honest with you. You don’t understand. You probably didn’t even bother to READ what the damn thing is about. You should be utterly ashamed of yourselves.
If this law is approved, Italian Wikipedia will have to close in any case. It’s not a matter of PoV, or leaning to one political side: It’s survival of the Italian Wikipedia project.