voting italy
Is keeping on the homepage the link to a past article with comments over the vote a violation of the electoral silence?
<p>In Italy there is a law which states that 24 hours before the start of a vote, be it an election or a referendum, the campaign must stop. It is called the electoral silence and in this period every voter should be allow to think without being bombarded by external influences. In the contemporary age there could be (actually there is) the case of a newspaper publishing on the online site a commentary with some vote recommendation before the start of the silence, but then the link is kept on the homepage during the voting day. Is it a violation of the silence?</p>

<p><a href="https://rm.coe.int/study-on-political-advertising-eng-final/1680a0c6e0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This article</a> is a useful introduction to restrictions on political advertising in the EU, where §3.4 (p 33) covers Italy. <em>Silenzio elettorale</em> is covered by <a href="https://www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2Ls?urn:nir:stato:legge:1956-04-04;212!vig=" rel="nofollow noreferrer">art 9.</a> of Norme per la disciplina della propaganda elettorale. The statutory situation is not entirely clear to me, but the main controlling fact relevant to the internet question is that <a href="https://www.agcom.it/documents/10179/9478149/Documento+generico+01-02-2018/45429524-3f31-4195-bf46-4f2863af0ff6?version=1.0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">AGCOM issues rules</a>. An English legal analysis (from an Italian law firm) is <a href="https://portolano.it/en/news/italy-agcom-publishes-online-platforms-commitments-in-sight-of-the-next-european-parliamentary-elections" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>. Their undernourished analysis of the silence period is</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Finally, Italian legislation prohibits political propaganda on
election day and on the day before. Although AGCOM is not competent
for ascertaining infringements of said prohibition, it considers
important to call everyone to turn the attention on these provisions.
Indeed, they are important to guarantee effective protections of the
constituents. As such, in the Authority’s opinion, the prohibition
applies to all media.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clearly, the law applies to internet platforms. What is not clear is whether the prohibition as applied to web pages is against &quot;adding content&quot;, or does it require the elimination of previously-distributed content and scrubbing of links to such content. Perhaps the matter will be clarified in court one day.</p>
