A glimmer of hope for Italian bloggers?

Click here to read Bernhard Warner's column: A geriatric assault on Italian bloggers

For those of you who are still grousing about Italy's draft "anti-blogger" legislation (and judging from my inbox and the comments on my most recent column, there are a lot of you) don't despair. To be sure, any law requiring Italian bloggers to register with the Government before airing their grievances would generate more problems that it solves, but there are ways around it.

As a number of you have already told me, we can all sneak our blogs to an offshore server and still take aim at unresponsive elected officials and their poorly conceived laws, the reckless drivers, the misguided football managers and the inefficiency of Poste Italiane from our homes and offices in Parma, Rome, Milan and Sicily. In other words, we can have our pasta out in the open and engage in some honest criticism of the system too without fear of being roughed up by Guardia di Finanza officers.

That's a small comfort.

Or, as one reader told me by e-mail, we do have the law on our side. EU law.

"The solution is actually rather simple," he tells me. "It is necessary only to lay a formal complaint before (a) the European Commission in Bruxelles and (b) deposit a class action before the European Court of Justice (that's the EU court in Luxembourg, not the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg). However for good measure it would be good politics to register a case with the Court of Human Rights too."

Facile, as the Italians might say.

It's good to know there are solutions for evading or derailing such a poorly conceived draft law. But this is still missing the point. Blogs (not all blogs, I realise, but enough) serve a unique function in a civil society. When done well, they can be the eyes and ears of a community. If bloggers are doing their job, they introduce a fresh layer of accountability into a community. In such a place, there are no untouchables. The mayor, the football manager, the police chief, the local bank, they are all on notice. If they start abusing their position, a flag goes up and a blogger begins his reportage, alerting the community to an alleged transgression.

And yes, this runs both ways. Bloggers should be held as accountable for their words and actions, for things like fairness and accuracy and transparency, just as we do with the mayor and the football coach and the wrong-headed politician and his poorly conceived laws.

So thank you to everybody who has offered me an off-shore server to host my students' news blog. It's staying in Rome, regardless of what the lawmakers decide.

Comments

[Andre Bortolami Padua]

Hello, i am a 26 italian guy from padua veneto and believe me ITALIAN PEOPLE ARE FAR MORE BETTER THAN THEIR OCTUAGENARIES LAWMAKERS IN GAMBLING WITH MAFIA. This law is a shame for my country, that never behaved so except during mussolini's dictatorship.
So, This show how criminal are the left government on Italy, full of communists and mafiosi interested only in robbering the country with high taxes.
We need really to kick out old people and mafiosi and let the young, idealistic, and pragmatic people to lead this country. We worth, and we need to show this with the best of our country.

[scared italian]

In italy now there is dictatorship....
please world help us!!!!

[Alex Roe]

I've been a bit slow of the mark on this one. When I read about this, I simply could not believe what Prodi and his merry men where up to. Grillo has got the despotic Italian politicians rather worried, but the sounds of things.

I shall be donating to any war-fund to fight this all the way through the courts of Italy (should only take ten years or so...) and the European courts - both of them.

In the meantime, I shall continue to write my blogfromItaly blog -which actually generates interest in Italy as a tourist destination as well as promoting Italian products and services.

I don't think Prodi really knows what a blog is. I wonder if he can use email, even.

I'm shocked.

[Jypo]

We are not simply "spaghetti, baffi neri e mandolino". There are a lot of young people like me, working with very old people, who are wondering what to do to really change our sad condition. I ask myself if it is right to go abroad and leave all behind or it would be better to stay and change something, when it comes the possibility.
The thing is: is it still possible to change something and let young people (before they get old) take the lead without a violent revolution? Because the more we respect the Institutions, the more they don't listen to us

[alda]

I still like to believe that Italy is in the EU for a fact and not only as lipservice.

Furthermore I think that, provided there are serious talks on such a law, the so-called lawmakers should get informed on the range of blogs that exist and their purpose.
I do understand that, whatever anyone writes publicly is at the end of the day an opinion and should be viewed by everyone, if is online, but I am not so sure that some Italian bloggers would make such a difference in serving a function in society if the main subject of their blog is in fact their personal life.
For instance, my blog is pretty basic and remote, I do in fact just write about my miseries and my happy moments in a very spontaneous kind of way.
I don’t see how the Government could find my constant moaning on my daily life interesting in any way.
Also, if you look at it, there are so many of us who just feed the net with their personal grief and silly lalas, that, personally, I would leave them alone instead of wasting time and money to make them more visible than they are.

[Dragoberto]

Isn't it sad to know that the heritage of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Volta, Marconi, Fermi (just to mention some of the most known...) is in the hand of people who forgot their roots? The point is, nothing will change. The people who rule are the same, always and in any country, unless you look at revolutions. No sufference leads to no change. Even after fascism, nazism and communism (think of former DDR) only the top leaders are dislodged, but the rest stays in charge.

[Andrea Venturi]

my two cents..
generally speaking, one of my main concerns is about the number of laws that italian politicians are going to approve during their involvement.

this one is just the last one, good only for them to say "we are doing something!"

but each law is simply just going to clash with previous ones. at best could state some "exception" to the "corpus" in an infinite level of complexity, confusion and uncertainty (anyone think to FUD?)

we need less and less laws, and those stating only general rules. this should be the way to go.

we should really subsidize parlamentors to delete all the bloating (maybe double pays, the day they remove one old law..)

it could work. i'm not joking. i'm just a 40 year old too too tired. :-)

[Andrew Ayres]

I was so shocked to read about this draft law, I've started an English-language Facebook Cause to show support for those against it

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/28603

Please show your support too by joining the cause, it only takes a second.

[Ashamed Italian]

Hi i am a 33 y.o. living in the city of Como, (the one in the north on the famous lake) - I am ashamed to show my passport and when i am abroad i say to people i meet i am from the italian canton of Switzerland - we cannot get rid of this rotten system and the only solution i see is to move abroad - with this idiotic law written by idiotic politicians they are even trying to oust Beppe Grillo, the only italian who, thanks to the web, is doing something notable to change this disgusting parliament and government.
I beg the EU to intervene and impose modern laws on this country ruled by bribed politicians who ought to be better at home with their grandchildren, giving way to young people with fresh ideas.

[S. Tranquilli]

"Once the law is created, the workaround is soon found" is a rough translation of an old Italian expression (fatta la legge, trovato l'inganno). It is sad to hear about some of the workarounds proposed by your readers. They simply don't get get it. They are so used to operating in a corrupt/degenerate environment that they can devine prophylactic solutions, without really understanding what is happening to them.

[Daniele]

Thus in Italy there are many honorable senators and really unnecessary is very old which is why many Italians expect "bebbe grillo"

[emanuele]

thanks for your's interesting,but in italy nothing change,HELP US !!!!

[Andrea Vit]

I'm really worried about the situation in Italy.
I'm 23 years old and I don't see a change in the future.
In Italy, the leadership is property of a group of old politicians and there's no young people who can bring values and freshness.
The problem is that the situation cannot change because it's impossible to enter in this smelly system.
Only EC can help us!
I think that this law shows the afraid of politicians to lose the control of media and information.
TV and newspapers are controlled by politicians not by journalists.

[Ezio]

Your analysis is corrected: this is the consequence because the prime minister is "FANTOZZI" (your Mr. Bean), but in democracy he will end soon! Next year "FANTOZZI go home" and in Italy will return to shine the sun!