On 12 October 2015 Felice Zingarelli (a.k.a. Felynx), member of the Italian Pirate Party, was invited to the IGF Italy, as a representative for civil society. The conference was supposed to be “multi-stakeholder” and open to debate and discussion, but this is not the impression that we had.

“Most of the speakers were people used to this kind of events” Felynx explained “They are not sincerely interested in what arises from the discussion: all they want is the possibility to say “I was there”. The representative of Digital Confindustria (Italian Entrepreneur Federation) has proposed an Internet Governance model for Italy, hoping that it should be “submitted to” (approved by?) Italian Government [many MPs were absent, although they had been invited, n.d.r.].

That’s why I decided not to do what I should and to openly criticize the entire operation”.

At the end of his speech, Felynx mentioned the Brazilian Internet Ungovernance Forum, and the news has aroused the interest of many people, including Stefano Rodotà.

So the Italian Pirate Party decided to organize the Italian IUF in Rome (at Fusolab 2.0), on 7 November. Several organizations and individuals have joined and supported the event. The hashtag for the event is #IUFitalia2015
As in Brazil, the Italian IUF will focus on the real Internet issues. There will be two parallel workshops in the morning and two in the afternoon. The workshops will be about:

1. Profiling, control and censorship
Themes: profiling, privacy, social control, surveillance, censorship, freedom of expression, whistle-blowing
Social control devices for user profiling are the “secret” of huge profits of platform managers, as well as mass surveillance policies and activities by the Governments. Freedom of Information is threatened by restrictive laws that seek to prevent the free flow of opinions. How can we defend ourselves and respond to profiling and control? How can we ensure and extend the freedom of information?

2. Free knowledge
Themes: free access to knowledge, contents, copyright, intellectual property, patents.
Internet is the biggest producer and repository of knowledge. What hinders free access and re-use of digital content, produced and distributed on the internet? How can we respond to increasingly restrictive rules and regulations?

3. Net neutrality
Themes: infrastructure, free networks, digital divide, right of access, net neutrality
Net neutrality is the condition that enables Internet to be an extraordinary opportunity for development and social innovation from below, against the income position of new and old Over The Top. What are the technical and regulatory conditions that maintain net neutrality against recurrent attempts to introduce fences and lanes?

4. Internet Governance
Themes: governance model, participation, Internet Bill of Rights.
The multi-stakeholder model and the risk of network regulation only by governments and Over The Top business, at the expense of the fundamental rights of individuals, whose possibility of intervention is penalized. How can civil society influence decisions? Which models, methods, tools apart from Social Networks?

Guest Author: Leonardo
Some years ago I “discovered” Linux, the free-software and free-knowledge movement.
I live in Florence and I am a member of the local FabLab; I have always been interested in politics and this year (2015) I decided to join the italian Pirate Party, as it is the only political party with a completely horizontal structure.

Featured image: CC BY-SA PPIT

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On 12 October 2015 Felice Zingarelli (a.k.a. Felynx), member of the Italian Pirate Party, was invited to the IGF Italy, as a representative for civil society. The conference was supposed to…