ROME — The Italian Camera, their equivalent to the U.S. House of Representatives, has approved an agenda item to prevent the passage of a controversial amendment that would have required all adult sites to be automatically blocked by device manufacturers, and at the ISP level, with the proposal that subscribers would be required to individually request the block to be lifted.
The amendment had been inserted, as XBIZ reported earlier this week, at the legislative committee stage by Simone Pillon, a representative from the far-right Lega (formerly Lega Nord, or “Northern League”) party, and it was due to come to a vote by Monday.
“The Camera raises the shields against the mandatory and automatic internet porn filter,” is how newspaper La Repubblica described today’s move by the ruling PD’s Enza Bruno Bossio, urging the government to prevent the parental control filters from being “pre-activated” and to ensure their availability “at the request of the consumer” instead.
Pillon had inserted the amendment on a lengthy wiretapping law that the Italian parliament is debating.
La Repubblica opined that the matter is not yet settled, though Bossio’s agenda item is an important roadblock to the Lega’s attempt to censor all adult content on the Italian internet.