Italy Makes 'Deliberately Getting On TV' A Crime?

from the please-explain-the-reasoning dept

With all the new laws being proposed to try to deal with people committing stupid crimes with the sole intention of getting “famous” on YouTube, it seems fair to ask if the laws themselves make sense. However, some seem to be taking such laws even further. Reader Dave writes in to point out that Italy appears to have outlawed deliberately getting yourself on TV. The law was targeted at a prankster who’s made quite a career for himself disrupting TV newscasts in order to promote condoms. He’s (amazingly) been able to do this 20,000 times. You can understand why this might be frustrating — but you would also think there would be other laws to deal with this. Instead, this new law sounds very broadly written, as you could get arrested for it even if you appear on TV and are “silent and immobile.” So, simply standing behind a TV reporter during a newscast could now put you in prison in Italy. Something doesn’t seem right about that.

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Comments on “Italy Makes 'Deliberately Getting On TV' A Crime?”

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22 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Re: It's not a law..

If they cant handle the crowds why are they even bother to go “live”? Talk about catering to idiots…..cant take the heat kitchen you know what im talkin about.

As for newscasts are a public service?

riiiight, any “news” that relies on advertising is suspect by principal alone, let alone the rest of it.

Think of it this way, today’s news is “dumbed down” to the point it will attract viewers stupid enough to actually buy the products advertised. Neat huh?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: It's not a law..

“As for newscasts are a public service?

riiiight, any “news” that relies on advertising is suspect by principal alone, let alone the rest of it.

Think of it this way, today’s news is “dumbed down” to the point it will attract viewers stupid enough to actually buy the products advertised. Neat huh?”

.. You realize the irony of saying something like that on a news website supported by advertising…right? Pardon me, I see a Google Ad I need to go click…

Italian exiled says:

there's worst

Unfortunately Italy is experiencing a lot of this repression lately.
In the last few weeks and in the next few ones, press will be denied the right to inform people (about accadiments in court of law), judges will be denied the right to investigate (by the abolition of wiretapping for so called “light” crimes like political bribery), citizens will be denied the right to sue big companies with class actions and army will be called to patrol the streets.

Please, help us!!

Nicola Battista (user link) says:

Gabriele Paolini is crap anyway... ;)

I agree on the fact that Italy is seeing a lot of repression and censorship under the current government of Mr.Berlusconi. After behaving for a couple months, in the last few days the guy has shown his old (and real) face and is back to trying to use the law and his power so save his own ass and a few friends. If his lawyer is so sure he will not be sentenced in the Mills case (a long story involving bribes, Hollywood movies broadctasting rights for tv and some English lawyer) then why try to make new laws (one approved today by our Senate) to block certain criminal trials (including those related to Berlusconi)?
That said: Gabriele Paolini is an idiot; not sure whether he is someone with any mental health issues or if he does all this intentionally. He once appeared during a BBC correspondence from Italy advertising the url for his own porn site. He was even sentenced for that site depicting him and other people in sexual acts. Also, while many times he has appeared promoting condoms, some other times he was saying “Viva il Papa” (“hurrah for the Pope”, when John Paul II was Pope) and I saw him one time screaming some assorted nonsense at a few politicians, like “Berlusconi assassino, Pannella pedofilo!” (now I certainly am not a fan of Berlusconi, but I have no idea while he was calling him “assassin” or why did he think that old radical party leader Pannella was in his opinion a “pedophile”)…
Sorry for the long text; I was just meaning to say: Paolini is certainly not reliable as a condom or anti-AIDS campaigner/supporter…

Jason says:

Existing laws should be good enough...

This should be able to be handled with a simple civil harassment suit. This class of offense is civil in nature – it represents a non-threatening act that willfully harms a business.

It ought to have civil penalties, not criminal ones, unless the actual acts were de facto disturbing the peace, in which case again, the existing law should be good enough.

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