Italian Politician Tries To File Charges Against 4,609 YouTube Commenters

from the thin-skin,-much? dept

Tue, Oct 27th 2009 6:44am — Mike Masnick

Boing Boing points us to a story coming out of Italy, concerning what appears to be a former politician with a... colorful past, Salvatore Cuffaro (he was apparently found guilty of helping the Mafia), who is upset about the comments on a YouTube video that involves himself, but which is from the early 90s. So, he's "laid charges" against all 4,609 commenters (since then, many more have commented). I'm not familiar enough with the legal system of Italy to quite understand what these charges mean, but the link above comes from an Italian political party, Italia dei Valori, which apparently is considered "anti-corruption." Apparently, that party is offering to cover the legal defense of any of the commenters who need the help. The translated text from Italia dei Valori isn't entirely clear -- and I'm not even sure what's wrong with the video or the commenters, or what people are being charged with exactly -- so please help fill in the blanks in the comments. However, any time you have a politician even threatening to sue thousands of YouTube commenters, you know something has gone wrong.

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Filed Under: comments, italia dei valori, italy, lawsuits, salvatore cuffaro, youtube

20 Comments

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Dark Helmet (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 6:49am

Hmm
Given his ties to the Mafia, I would think that this would be one time you truly WOULDN'T want to reveal anonymous commentors....
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- Xyro TR1 (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 6:53am
  
  Re: Hmm
  Hahaha yes. That.
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- Free Capitalist (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 7:09am
  
  Re: Hmm
  Yeah that's it.. he wants to SUE them....
  
  Nice chilling effect DH.
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- Anonymous Coward, 27 Oct 2009 @ 7:44am
  
  Re: Hmm
  I want to give you a video response that you can't refuse.
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A Dan (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 7:07am

"However, any time you have a politician even threatening to sue thousands of YouTube commenters, you know something has gone wrong."

To the contrary, it means something has gone right.
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- Anubhav C, 27 Oct 2009 @ 7:28am
  
  Re:
  Elaborate, please....
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- Anonymous Coward, 27 Oct 2009 @ 7:49am
  
  Re:
  I kind of agree. A YT video with thousands of comments means that something that needed to be shown was shown. And if someone is very, very upset, it probably was important enough.
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  - JT, 27 Oct 2009 @ 7:57am
    
    Re: Re:
    I do agree about the thousands of comments typically means people have a reason to speak up but also remember that YouTube has one of the largest gatherings of stupid people speaking out of their ass on the net.
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    - Alias (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 8:09am
      
      @JT
      Word.
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Avatar28 (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 7:27am

how many of those are outside of Italy?
Given the nature of the Internet and Youtube, I sort of have to wonder just how many of those people are even in Italy? I would be willing to bet that a fair number of them are not even in the country and therefore wouldn't (or shouldn't) fall under an Italian court's jurisdiction for this issue. Not that that ever seems to stop these courts from issuing ridiculous judgements anyways.

It gets even more muddy if the video is hosted in the US and commented on by someone in the US. Bah!

I really hope this is one instance where Google refuses to roll over (like it seems to be doing a lot lately) and actually fights back on it.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Oct 2009 @ 9:01am

Re: Fish N Gritz
KANYE IS THAT YOU? I FOUND MY CRUISE CONTROL BUTTON FOR AWESOME TOO!
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BullJustin (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 9:04am

Re: Fish N Gritz
Was it the mention of YouTube or the Mafia that convinced you this was a good place to spam?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Oct 2009 @ 9:05am

In some ways, I would love to see youtube commenters be brought into court.

If only because it means that someone, possibly a judge or a lawyer, would have to read a youtube comment out loud, in a courtroom. And I would pay to see that.
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- mike allen (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 11:45am
  
  Re:
  That would be fun agreed even better if they ever read any from Techdirt.
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  - HolaJohnny (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 5:32pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I've never heard of this "Techdirt". Is it some kind of new soil?
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patrick kapty, 27 Oct 2009 @ 9:45am

Talk about your tempest in a teapot...
First of all the reportage is incomplete, and the information is spotty at best, with most major issues unknown, so of course, there's got to be every idiot on the web sounding off their opinions on something that hasn't even been adequately presented in the first place. Glad they're not still burning witches, sure wouldn't take much to get someone burnt around here!
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Shawn (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 10:07am

Patrick Kapty is a witch!! He turned me into a newt!!!!!!
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- Dark Helmet (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 10:22am
  
  Re:
  "Patrick Kapty is a witch!! He turned me into a newt!!!!!!"
  
  Build a bridge out of him!!!!
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  - HolaJohnny (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 5:33pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Burn Him!
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- Anonymous Coward, 27 Oct 2009 @ 11:27am
  
  Re:
  Did you get bettah?
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