A couple of articles from Business Insider just gave me the chance to talk again of the interconnected world cultural oversimplification problem, and the (lack of) responsibility of professional information provider (not only journalists, I mean.)
Continue reading “Business Insider and the Western Centric Arrogance (Oversimplification, again)”
Bruce Lee, Getty Images and the Dangers of Cultural Oversimplification in an Overconnected World
The Internet is a necessary tool to handle international exchanges. Online Professional Content Delivery Services should pay the utmost attention to the information they release Continue reading “Bruce Lee, Getty Images and the Dangers of Cultural Oversimplification in an Overconnected World”
Cyber-Wathever Expert in Ten Steps
No need to know what you’re talking about when writing about computers. Just follow these 10 steps and gain major media and companies attention! Continue reading “Cyber-Wathever Expert in Ten Steps”
Intesa Sanpaolo and the Careless Copywriter
I have always been fascinated by the unwanted consequences of an advertising slogan, and by the lack of perspective of (some) communication campaigns.
This time, what grabbed my attention was a claim published on Intesa Sanpaolo website, whose small-prints read:
Until July 2, in Rome, Milan and Turin, the experience of living with no cash.
Almost automatically a reaction snapped out in my – and I assume not only mine – mind: looking at how economy is currently performing, a lot of people don’t need a bank to “feel” how does it is to live with no cash.
This simple consideration – a pun, actually – sinks down the copywriter’s attempt to spin the optimistic view of the world, that incites people to live… sorry spend money without (immediate) worries.
How could Intesa Sanpaolo CEO handles himself if, for instance during a TV debate where he talks about this ad campaign, somebody throws at him a line like the one I’ve figured out?
Yes, he might explain that the message is not meant to offend people that have hard time in carry out their daily life, that the message, on the contrary, is an hymn to the joie-de-vivre and so on. But as always happens with short, neat and powerful hits, when? you start dodging the blow with complicated explanation, the damage is already there.
Of course this scenario is not going to happens for the probability that somebody might notice, understand and speculate on this minor issue is actually close to none. But as once a great advertising man told me about the importance of covering all bases:
nobody is going to notice a small mistake, but the? one who will exploit it against you.
Blogger Liability for the users’ posts? The Italian Supreme Court Never Said It
The decision n. 54946/2016 released by the Italian Supreme Court – Vth Branch? that held a blogger liable for defamation for a libeling post on his website is gaining momentum in Italy as a case law affirming the automatic liability of a blogger for the behaviour of the people who posts comments.? But? this is a wrong account of the story.
The merit of the issue is a comment where somebody called the chair of the Italian Soccer Pro League a certified criminal and a crook, and sent the blogger the criminal record of the chairman. While the defendant claimed of not knowing about the comment until the police knocked at his door, the court found that the email containing the criminal record was
enough to have actual knowledge of the existence comment itself.
This decision has been wrongly reported as a shift toward the intermediary liability for omitted control of a platform’s contents.
The decision grounded the indictment on the basis that the defendant actually – actually, I repeat – knew about the existence of the defamatory content and didn’t remove it. Thus – it can be summarized – he either directly contributed to the defamation or indirectly allowed the post to exploit its effect.
While, thus, this decision doesn’t impose a duty of preemptive monitoring, it broadens the notion of “actual knowledge”.
To what extent it will be assessed in the near future.