Editors of the Italian Wikipedia have shut the site down in protest against a law currently going through the Italian parliament. User:Vituzzu, an editor on Italian Wikipedia, explained the reasons behind the debate:
Today, unfortunately, the very pillars on which Wikipedia has been built – neutrality, freedom, and verifiability of its contents – are likely to be sunk permanently by paragraph 29 of an Italian Law also known as "DDL interception".
This legislative reform proposal, which the Italian Parliament is debating currently, provides, among other things, a requirement to all websites to publish, within 48 hours of the request without comment, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to their image. Unfortunately, the law does not require an evaluation of the claim by an impartial third judge: the opinion of the person allegedly injured is all that is required in order to impose such correction to any website.
Conversely, anyone who feels offended by any contents published on a blog, an online newspaper and most likely, even on Wikipedia, can directly request the removal of such contents and its permanent replacement with a "corrected" version, aimed to contradict and disprove the allegedly harmful contents, regardless of the veracity of the information deemed as offensive, and its sources.
Discussion in the "Bar" (equivalent to the English Wikipedia's Village Pump) resulted in broad support from editors for a "blackout", with all pages redirected to a page based on Vituzzu's words. This was done on October 4 and is still in force as of publishing time. The blackout has received some mainstream attention from various international news outlets; notable English-language reports include the BBC and the Washington Post. The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) issued an official statement supporting the Italian Wikipedians. In notable individual reactions from the Foundation-l mailing list, Sue Gardner tentatively supported the move, and Mike Godwin, the former legal counsel for the WMF, applauded the news, saying "It's very hard to get a government to change its mind. You have to challenge government officials in a big, dramatic (and usually longer-lasting) way to get their attention and make them responsive." However, there were also dissenting views. Kat Walsh, a WMF board member, believed that a complete blackout may have been going too far:
I agree that for a protest to be effective, it must cause real disruption, enough to cause people to see the effect and get attention. I'm not even sure what I would suggest as an alternative--perhaps a shorter duration of complete blackout, and a gigantic sitenotice afterward (or beforehand)? Advertising the existence of mirrors? Allowing people to access articles in a tiny window below a gigantic notice? I'm not sure. I think the action that was done may be too much, that maybe something could have been done to generate as much attention without cutting off access as much.
Discussion among community members is continuing at Meta's Wikimedia Forum.
For the second largest book fair in Europe, Swedish chapter Wikimedia Sverige produced three short films about why different target groups should edit Wikipedia. These films covered librarians, teachers and senior citizens respectively. Wikimedia Sverige has offered to help out anyone who wants a version in their own language. More information and localization efforts here.
Discuss this story
OMG, that's terrible about the Italian law - Can anybody design like a widget or something that is the equivalent of a black armband with the Wikipedia Italy logo on it that we can use to show solidarity? KConWiki (talk) 04:06, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it.wikipedia is closed, starting from 08.00 PM of October, 4th. It is not clear when the Italian wikipedia will restart its activities, nor it is clear if it will be able to re-open. In the meantime, Italian politicians discuss in Parliament their censorship rule to be imposed to Italian people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Truman Burbank (talk • contribs) 11:16, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I added a short blurb at the bottom of the story to explain the discrepancy. It's a bit out of tradition, but we'd look even more foolish then we already do if we didn't mention this had occurred.Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:23, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]