On November 27! il foglio.it published the draft bill developed within the parliamentarymajority and prepared at the initiative of Senators Zanda and Filippin! entitled “General provisions on social networks and to combat the The Zanda-Filippin dissemination of illegal content and fake news on the Internet” (the text can be found here ).
In the presentation of the bill
The text opens with the observation of the “increasing importance of social The Zanda-Filippin networks for the formation of public opinion industry email list in democratic societies” and with the framing of fake news as news that cause social alarm! often introduced into the social network circuit to influence public opinion in a country” (for a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon! see the monographic issue of the magazine MediaLaws n. 1/2017! available here ).
Of undoubted importance and merit! the analysis of the problems focuses however only on the fact of false news as a tool for influencing public opinion in the political sphere . The drafters do not in fact consider the much more significant distortion of the paradigm of.
The press and freedom of information! which play those founding and essential roles for a democracy of accountability of caseno email list political power and information in society! based on the dissemination of true or truthful news (qualified object of freedom of information).
This methodological approach and reading of the phenomenon
The first: unlike the so-calle ro bill (available here )! the text does not introduce a crime of spreading false news online (like article 656-bis of the Gambaro bill)! but it identifies a series of criminal instruments already existing in our legal system! referred to in art. 1 of the bill! some of which are only loosely linked to the problem of fake news:Seems to influence
crimes against the person ( Defamation 595 cp; Ch graphy 600-ter cp; Possession of pornographic material 600-quater cp; Virtual observations and precedents pending from the supreme court in gill v. whitford pornography 600-quater-1 cp; Tourism initiatives aimed at exploiting child prostitution 600-quinquies cp; Threats 612 cp; Stalking 612-bis cp; Illicit processing of personal data 167 Legislative Decree no. 196/2003.
