This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Berlusconis Abhörgesetz bedroht Online-Medien

The Italian Parliament has resumed discussions on the very criticised governmental bill that would limit the publication of wiretaps in the news media, forcing at the same time websites to automatically publish corrections at request. But on 12 October 2011 the decision on the final text was postponed, after the paragraph 29 was amended so it will not apply to any blog.

The draft bill was approved by the Senate in June 2011 but has been put aside due to strong criticism from civil society.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Ungarische Polizei leitet Untersuchungen gegen investigativen Journali...

The Hungarian police has put under investigation Tamás Bodoky, editor-in-chief of the recently launched Atlatszo.hu, a watchdog NGO and online magazine for investigative journalism.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Französisches Verfassungsgericht schränkt Haftung von Bloggern ein

The French Constitutional Court decided on 16 September 2011 that the website administrators (such as editors of blogs or online forums) should not automatically be held criminally responsible for online comments posted on their sites.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: EGMR prüft Beschwerde von Azeri Bloggern wegen unrechtmäßiger Inhaf...

The Azeri bloggers that have been imprisoned for one year and a half under alleged hooliganism accusations, have filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights which will decide whether their detention was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade were arrested in Baku in July 2009, being accused of hooliganism, after having reported to the police that they had been physically attacked in a restaurant.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Europäische Kommission will staatliche Kontrolle des Internets ausbau...

The European Commission (EC) Information Society and Media Directorate-General have recently drawn up a series of six policy papers intended to increase government control over the Internet.

The policies have in view measures that include governmental control over the domain names that can be registered, the veto power of governments over new Internet domain names, significant structural changes at the level of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), an obligation of th

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Türkei vertagt Pläne zur Filterung des Internets

Having been fiercely criticized since May 2011 over its Internet filtering system (Procedures and Principles regarding Safe Internet Use) planned to be imposed on 22 August, the Information Technologies Board (BTK) has decided to delay the introduction of the system till 22 November 2011 and to reduce the number of filters that are now said to cover adult content.

The government's plan was to force Internet users to choose from among a list of filtering packages meant to block certain unspecified websites.

Under the modified vers

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Britische Ausschreitungen lösen Ruf nach Sperre sozialer Medien aus

The recent riots that have taken place in the UK have initiated a wave of statements from officials on the necessity to shut down or suspend access of UK citizens to certain social media services.

The Metropolitan Police Service confirmed that it considered shutting off some social media sites: "The MPS did consider whether social media sites could be closed during the disorder but police do not have the facilities or the legislation to enable this."

David Lammy, the parliamentary representative

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: EDRi-Stellungnahme zur Konsultation über Online-Glücksspiele

European Digital Rights responded to the European Commission consultation on online gambling. As previously reported, an early draft of the consultation document appeared to be in favour of blocking, in principle, but recognised the failings of this approach, which it described as "challenging," "costly" and "ineffective".

The final version of the consultation document was more neutral, simply asking about existing schemes, effectiveness and ISP liability.