Sadly, mostly Americans probably know Italy via the Olive Garden (Never-ending pasta bowls for everyone!) and the bastion of taste and class that is their fearless leader Silvio “Bad Touch” Burlesque Berlusconi. Seriously, you kinda have to sympathize with a nation whose leader is most famous for being a horny old man with an orgy fetish who loves to fake-hump meter maids on the side.
Anyway, as part of the Berlusconi regime, they took a look at that stupid law Tennessee passed about how anyone can complain about something they find offensive on the Internet and force the website in question to take it down, realized that they’re outrageously corrupt and their leader has to regularly deny to the media that he’s throwing orgies with teenagers, and thought “Hey, that’s a great idea to keep the online press from ratting us out!” It gets better: it’s aimed at the Web and the website is not allowed to note the change. Nor can a third party evaluate the charge.
Currently the law is being debated in Italian parliament, but Wikipedia is taking no chances: the Italian part of the site has been hidden and if the law goes through, it’s going to get deleted.
This is why we love living in the land of the free and the home of the brave. That and we’re not being led by a horny, shriveled frog, as far as we know anyway.