Italian Wikipedia temporarily stopped working due to new draft law on defamation

The Italian Parliament is currently considering a law that any website should, at the first request of any person, insert within 48 hours a refutation of any information that this person deems to spoil its reputation. The participation of the court or the police in this process is not provided; violation of the law may entail heavy fines (up to 12,500 euros). Moreover, the refutation, according to the same law, should look exactly the same as the original discrediting statement ().

The authors of the Italian Wikipedia realized that they could not work and remain neutral under such a law, and decided to go on strike. Therefore, all pages of the Italian Wikipedia are currently being redirected to the protest page . When the section in Italian becomes available again to visitors, it is not clear yet.

It is worth noting that in Italy one of the most stringent laws on the protection of reputation, as it provides for punishment for defamation, that is, the dissemination of defamatory information, regardless of whether they are true or not. In Russia and the United States, punishment is imposed only for defamation, that is, for the dissemination of deliberately incorrect information defaming, and the burden of proof lies with the plaintiff (in theory).