Recently I was surprised to discover that the Italian government is researching an option to tax and monitor bloggers. According to various sources, there is a pending law proposal requiring bloggers to register with the national registry of “communication operators”, which so far has been used for professional media only. Basically this law proposal is asking to enforce greater control over the blogosphere both in terms of its economic activity and in terms of content.

In addition to the ideological debate, i wonder how exactly they plan enforcing that? Will Italian members of Facebook have to register as well? What about Italian immigrants elsewhere blogging in Italian? And what about Italian using overseas platforms? It seems to me there are many questions and unclarity surrounding this issue, but it all links back to the ongoing debates about internet governance. I wonder to what extend the lawmakers asking to regulate the “new” media, are actually familiar with them and understand what is going on? The whole initiative seems bizarre at this point. If I had a mood icon here it would definitely be set to “confused” at this point.