Category: Free Speech

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The Content Filtering Hysteria… again

According to the Italian online newspaper Repubblica.it, the UN-appointed expert Frank La Rue expressed concerns about the effect of an upcoming copyright-related regulation announced by the Autorità per le comunicazioni (AGCOM an independent, State-appointed body superseding the broadcast and telco secondary regulation) on of free-speech. AGCOM is trying since longtime to enforce the French HADOPI model in Italy to “fight copyright infringements”, pushing to self-assign the power to delete copyright infringing contents available on the Internet. With a rather while understandable (from a political standpoint) ? convoluted prose Mr. La Rue said what a lot of people is saying: copyright is not a “gold right” and has no title to be given ? an absolute stand over free speech and the other fundamental rights. But this is only a third of the story.

Second third: since, in Italy, copyright infringements are a criminal offense, only a magistrate can order both a content’s filter or removal. By letting the AGCOM act as a parallel “prosecutor and ? judge” would means to invade the attribution of the judiciary system and endanger the the “due process” principle.This is not allowed by the Constitution.

Third third: copyright doesn’t only belong to broadcast companies, music labels and movie producers. Every Internet user who publishes a photo, a movie, a song or a text has the right to not be stolen of its intellectual property. The AGCOM proposed regulation doesn’t address clearly this issue so only two options are possible: either the regulation only cares of the big companies and that would be non acceptable, or, on the contrary, will be open to protect everybody – i.e. will become useless, since there will likely be a tide of claim.

The end of the story is that, whatever the power belonging to AGCOM, it can’t invade the prerogative of the Court, notwithstanding the supporting opinion received by the AGCOM from some legal scholar maybe not much familiar with the intricacies of the Italian criminal procedural code.

 

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Search Engines and the Hypocricy of Filtering

Another step toward the end of the Google’s “we’re just a neutral platform, ain’t nothing to do with those who publish illegal content” defense: according to The Register Google and Microsoft agreed to tweak its algorithms to prevent child-pornography-related searches.

This decision has two downfalls: the first is that in the upcoming trial it will be harder for a search-engine company to pledge innocent against the accusation of direct or contributory infringement since Google and Microsoft made deadly clear that it is actually possible to “handle” the way its engines work. The second is that by targeting the search engine result as a way to counter illegal content only stops the “casual” and final user, while the real criminal will stay free to spread their venom. In other word, focusing on content filter is just a PR stunt to lead Average Joe in believing that the Gov’s are doing fine, so no more “public scandal” ? on mainstream media will bother the Powers-that-be.

The criminals thank you all for the gift.

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Street Photography, Right to be Alone and the Challenge of the Reasonable Privacy Expectation

Question: what does ? street-photography has in common with Google’s indictment in the Mosley suit?

Answer: both challenge the balance between reasonable privacy expectation and the right to be informed.

There is a widespread attitude acknowledged by some European courts – namely, Italy and France – that grants legal protection to this alleged “right to be forgotten”. This is a rather dangerous attitude because following this path leads to the deletion of the collective memory of a culture: if Catilina were alive today, he would have had merit in asking his conspiracy to be deleted by the chronicle. Agreed, not everybody is a Catilina – or a public person whatsoever – but there is a shared principle in Western legal systems that separates what is public and what ought to be private. As soon as something falls in the former, there is not – or ? there shouldn’t be – a reason to delete the information of its existence.

To provide an example of the absurdity of the enforcement of this alleged “right to be forgotten” on the freedom of (online) press I can quote a fact I’ve witnessed in person, professionaly. An online magazine has been targeted by a threatening letter from a law firm, asking to remove from its server an article talking about an acquittal – yes, acquittal – of a Mr. Somebody. The basis of the claim is not a falsity or an exaggeration – that would have been illegal, indeed – but the simple fact that this Mr. Somebody “didn’t like the news to be online.” Only the future will tell whether this case will end in settling new censorship’s standards, or if the Justice – once and if the issue will be taken in Court – will decide in favour of the freedom.

As per the relevant case law, after a couple of lower court decision that enforced this “right to be forgotten”, a Supreme Court decision ruled that there is no such thing as “right to be forgotten” when freedom of press is involved and the news is correct. The concerned person, nevertheless, has the right to ask the online newspaper to update the original news in case of some further development of the story.

With a rather unusual sense of balancement – when dealing with the Internet – the Supreme Court issued a reasonable decision that should stop any further attempt of erasing the History.

 

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Italy, Wikileaks and the disappearing journalism

As every country with “something to hide”, Italy (better, the Italian government) is concerned of what might be soon disclosed on Wikileaks.

As a preemptive strike against possible Wikileaks’ fallback yesterday an official press-release said – without explicitly mentioning Assanges’ website – that “the forthcoming pubblication of confidential reports about the USA politics, with possible negative side effects on Italy tooo – imposes a though determination to defend the Italian reputation as well the protection of economic and political interests of the country” (the translation is mine, I apologize for any mistake.)

I bet my ten cents that when the Italian File will be disclosed the first reaction will be to call for a new law to control the flow of information that endanger “national security” or whatever they name it.

Another interesting issue to remark is the (non)role of the Italian journalists in the whole story. It is, at least, odd that a remote-located website news service, with no apparent connection with the country, is able to get sensitive information about the Italian government, while the local journalists – and especially those who write about politics – don’t.

This is a bad blow to the role of the press as powers’ watchdog.

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In the name of privacy…

If passed, a bill heavily supported by right wing Italian prime minister and media mogul , Silvio Berlusconi, will force the public prosecutors to wiretap suspect’s communication for a limited time and will punish harshly those who shares information related to a criminal investigation before the trial (that usually, in Italy, starts year after the alleged crime has been detected.)
This draft law is a ruthless attempt to shut down the check and balance system in Italy (thus, it is not a case that the bill is aimed at preventing prosecutors to investigate AND both traditional media and independent citizens to report information.)
That said, the reactions against the proposal were (and still are) short-sighted. Mainstream media talk about dangers for “bloggers” as if running a site with Drupal or WordPress actually gave a particular status to the information released. Technically speaking, whoever publish fake or offensive information is liable of his action. If those who commit the fact are journalists, then there is an additional liability for the editor-in-chief (in Italian: direttore responsabile.) Period.
I really don’t understand why a lot of “bloggers” complain for the (possible) introduction of a mandatory amendment of mistaken information. A law shouldn’t even be necessary, since it is matter of common sense to verify sources first and then, in case of error, fix it as fast as is possible.
Unfortunately, then, the criticisms against this law hit the wrong target, easing the work of the “Evil Forces”.