Culture

Is It a Crime to Get Yourself on TV? In Italy, Maybe It Is

by Jordan Yerman | June 18, 2008 at 05:11 am

253 views | 12 Recommendations | 2 comments

Youtube and its ilk have made a certain degree of fame attainable to just about anyone (just search for "stupid, truck, surfing" on Youtube if you don't believe me). In turn, this has forced governments to do what they do best: attempt to control citizens' behavior. In this case, the Italian Supreme Court has ruled that someone deliberately getting on TV whilst filming is taking place in public "can commit an offence". The vagueness of this ruling is somewhat perplexing, and this isn't even examining the obvious tradeoffs of filming anything in public.

The law was targeted at a prankster who's made quite a career for himself disrupting TV newscasts in order to promote condoms. He's (amazingly) been able to do this 20,000 times. You can understand why this might be frustrating -- but you would also think there would be other laws to deal with this.

Mr Paolini has made a career of popping up uninvited behind unwitting on-air TV reporters promoting condom use.

Guinness World Records says Mr Paolini is the world's most successful TV hijacker, interrupting 20,000 link-ups.

But now Italy's Supreme Court has upheld a three-month suspended sentence on him for interrupting a report on the state broadcaster RAI in June 2001.

The court has also ruled that anyone who deliberately gets onto TV while standing in a public place can commit an offence even if they are silent and immobile.

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ale2000

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 06:08 on June 18th, 2008

oh, so very typical of our italian stupidity!!!

mind you: i am italian, so i can speak on the issue.

this law is somewhat passing under silence as far as i can see, and it's such a good example of how this country is running down the slope.

pointless, stupid, irritating, useless, ridiculous: perfect to let everyone see what this goverment is.

(i have happened to see the guy, rather unbelievable and doubtful he could do it so many times. after such a show of tenacity, they should definitely give him a place on national tv - he might do better than most of our tv people - at least promoting condom use *is* important.)

Jordan Yerman

at 06:44 on June 18th, 2008

I agree with ale2000- clearly someone who can singlehandedly make himself so widely known should be seen as a potential resource, and not necessarily as an adversary. It's too easy to just remove him without seeing if he can teach the broadcasting industry something new.