There have been a bunch of items in my Twitter feed about how the
Italian Wikipedia has shut down in response to a proposed repressive
law regarding mandatory takedowns of allegedly defamatory online
material in Italy. I have some problems with such a move, as it sets
a precedent of having a particular language edition of Wikipedia tied
to an uncomfortable degree with the politics of one country just
because that's the primary place the language is spoken. It's always
been true that the separate editions of Wikipedia are by language,
not country. The Chinese Wikipedia keeps operating despite the
repressive censorship of China, and if that country chooses to block
it, that's their problem. English Wikipedia doesn't belong to
England, or America, or any other English-speaking country, though
the fact that the primary servers are in the USA does force it to
comply to U.S. law.
Unless there are servers in Italy, the Italian Wikipedia isn't
compelled to follow any Italian law, though there could be
consequences for any Italy-based participants if they don't,
including the possibility of individuals there being held responsible
for what they write or fail to take down, or possible mandatory
blockage of the site in that country if they choose to go the "Great
Firewall" route.
I remember the German Wikipedia being affected at one point by a
court injunction, but that only shut down a redirected .de domain,
not the site itself as a subdomain of US-registered
wikipedia.org.
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