Massimo Tartaglia became an instant celebrity in Italy after he was arrested for bashing the face of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi with a miniature statuette last weekend. Tartaglia amassed over 100,000 fans on Facebook within days, before the social networking company shut down his page. Is Facebook curtailing free speech or, as Berlusconi claimed, did the Tartaglia fanpage amount to a virtual "campaign of hate" against the prime minister?
Berlusconi's the problem, not Facebook: It isn't Facebook's fault the public is fed up with Silvio Berluscoli's corruption, says Alex Roe at Blog from Italy. The real issue is that, thanks to Facebook, Italians can say what they want more easily than ever in their history. And the Italian government wants to stamp out their newfound freedom of communication.
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