In recent years, the Italian government has been applying laws "to ensure security" considered by many different methods to restrict the freedom of citizens, easily condemn at will people considered hostile (as with the new law that allows to arrest anyone who tests positive for substances in the table of illegal substances while driving in any case, without the person being actually altered or alterable) and in fact making Italy more and more a police state. Until some time ago, in fact, searching for "police state" in Italian on Google (and also Bing) you could find pages and articles about it, while today the reference is timid on the part of Wikipedia, for the rest it refers to the concept of "police state" as "state's police", with a subtle but fundamental exchange of meaning.
I cannot interpret this story if nothing else as an act of censorship in the search for a concept online.
"stato di polizia" search: https://ibb.co/20G57Qqr (There is also a strong reference throughout the results to the concept of immigration, a topic dear to the current Italian government)
"police state" search: https://ibb.co/gL2Vp21x
"stato di polizia" news: https://ibb.co/wN4zGGdx
"police state" news: https://ibb.co/SwvQLqXV
We Italians have also lost many possibilities of defense against police abuse, after the elimination of the law against the crime of abuse of power.
I have no idea how to effectively bring this issue to everyone's attention.
A_D_E_P_T•9mo ago
Start an Italian-language blog/Substack about it and promote it to the right audience. If the past 15 years of politics have taught us anything, it's that, for better or worse, citizen bloggers can become quite influential.
Another thing you can do is find an attorney and contact Google's EU office, requesting clarification.
But consider the possibility this this is not a conspiracy. It could just be generic enshittification, as is known to have affected Google in recent years. If you search with quotes, you'll find that you get different and better results.
richsnipe•9mo ago
Incidentally, we also know from Google and Apple emails that some Italian journalists critical of the government have been reported to have been infected with high-level government spyware (Paragon), so it's not that unthinkable.
Finally, I wouldn't know how to consistently run a solely political blog, I would just like citizens to discover by experimenting for themselves with the search for this change and take note of it.
Thank you
Iolaum•9mo ago
I'm not sure that's reasonable. People's situation, skills, and interests vary.
richsnipe•9mo ago
metalman•9mo ago
zombiwoof•9mo ago