Italy - The new law against "Fake News".

Hi all, as usual I apologize in advance for my bad english. I would like to explain the content of the new DDL (a request for discussion of a law) which entered today into the higher chamber in Italy, also named as "Senato". This is because it contains several interesting articles, which are very different when compared with, by example, Germany.

You can dowload the document here, for reference (it's in italian): http://download.repubblica.it/pdf/2017/politica/gambaro.pdf

The proposal starts with a long explanation about the content, as usual when a new act is proposed in Italy. I don't know if this is also usual in other parliaments, being honest. Anyhow, this is only useful for courts which will be entitled to take decisions when the law is being enforced: to tell the court what was the aim of the law, in short.  Anyhow, is not forcing a court to do this and that, is just to explain the rational.

So I will ignore it, and go to the contents. 

The law contains two big areas, one for people who manages a "generic platform" to spread informations on the internet. The meaning of this "generic platform" definition is very wide: basically it applies to **anyone** which opens a stupid forum in the internet. Any kind of space when users are allowed to put any "news", is covered.

The second area is for people who spread "fake news". The interesting thing is that the law is indicating a crime scene, which means, responsibility is strictly personal.  So is not for ISPs or for social network managers: actually the USER which first injects the news in the platform is the target.

This is a very different approach if compared to Germany. Germany is proposing a huge fine (500.000€) to the social network itself, or at least the platform manager, if and when it refuses to remove some offending content. Italy is going to fine the user which injects the news with a lower amount (5000€) plus a crime conviction (1-2 years of jail) , which will cost ~10.000€ given the usual cost of attorneys, trials, and so. 

So the first big thing is that the italian parliament is trying to stop the fake news to the source, instead of hitting the media itself. Given the fact this is a crime, in Italy prosecutor is entitled to ask facebook the IP/logs of the person posting the offending "fake news". If the provider rejects to cooperate, the prosecutor has the power to block the whole social network. Differently from Brasil, there is a little chance to have this back in a short time: even if the social network will require to be unlocked by the ISPs, it would take months to have the case discussed.  So you can assume Facebook/whoever will give the source IP and other metadata to the police. They do it, always.

So the first part states the USER which is posting the news as the first user to post it into the social network, is accountable and liable. The punishment goes from 1 year if there is no defamation, in which case the person being defamed could join the trial asking more money.

Article 2 is even more interesting. It keeps the approach of the first article, focusing on the user, and cover the case when the aim of the fake news is to undermine  , distort or influence politics and/or democracy. In such a case the fine is the same, with the extension that, if the news contains "hate" or spreads "hate" against anyone, the fine and the jail time punishment doubles.

In practice, if you post a fake news which is just fake, you get 5000€ + 1 year jail. If you post a fake news which is influencing politics , hitting the government or democracy, you get 5000€ + 1 year jail again.If your fake news contains hate speech, you get it twice.

In Germany there is no such a difference, I suspect  because "hate speech" is punished already by a different law. 

Article 3 and 4 are about the platform admin. As I said, "what a platform is" is defined in such a wide range description. This means, if you install a PHP forum into your website,  you are in. Steemit is covered, by example. Chat  applications for mobile are covered. Almost anything which works with computer, networks and allow to spread news is covered, until spreading news is possible.

If you run such a platform, you need to communicate it to the government that you do, together with your personal data, and your "certified email". "Certified email" is a standard of signed email adopted in many countries in Europe to take the place of official communications via "snail mail". The difference is that each SMTP server is providing a delivery report, and the mail server (IMAP, exchange, etc) will issue  a read report when you read the email, up to the sender. All of them are cryptographically signed, so they are a legal evidence you actually read the email.This "certified mail" must be visible to all users of the platform.

Article 4 is about to amend news. 

This article is related to platform admins. Imagine a user of your platform is saying "Maria is a bitch, I've seen her doing this and that". Then as a platform admin you cannot prevent Maria to post in your platform her defense. If Maria is a public person, and publishes her defense , to say, in TV, YOU must publish this in your platform, linking the amendment to the related post. You must publish it in full.

If you don't , you may get a fine up to 2ooo€  per post.

Article 5 implements the "right to be forgotten", which is not a Morrissey' song like it seems:  is the (in)famous law made by the European Union, where you may ask any platform manager to remove offending posts, at any moment. It was never embedded into the Italian law before, so now it is.

Article 6 is about implementing some education against fake news into schools. Means people in the schools will be lectured about the new law.

Article 7 is very "juicy": it is about , responsibility, accountability and liability of platform's managers. 

Basically, it states that the platform admin MUST monitor CoNSTANTLY the whole content of the platform against fake news, in the specific case when users are showing a very strong interest about the content. Means, by example, a controversial topic MUST be monitored ALWAYS and CONSTANTLY by the platform admin.In case you realize this happens because of a fake news, as defined before, you MUST remove it immediately. Also, you MUST care of any report from users, when it comes to fake news.

If you don't , you get the same punishment as described before, which means from 5000 to 10000€ fine, plus 1 to 2 years of jail, per article. 

The last article just entitles the parliament, (actually a commission for communications) to keep this issue under control.

So the approach is very different from Germany. Is different because it focuses on users posting the contents first, instead of focusing on the social network themselves. Nevertheless, then it focuses also on them, so I would say, the law is very similar to the German one, but: the punishment in Germany is supposed to be higher, to scare big players. In italy fee and punishment is smaller, because it is supposed to ALSO  hit the users  which are injecting the news into online platforms.