King Oedipus would be proud of the upcoming measures to tighten up the Greek Internet.
Greek politicians aren’t phased out by the current state of the Greek economy; while the government takes the customary “August baths“, there’s already a new law in the works that would put freedom of speech to danger.
The planned law, to be introduced for voting by the end of September, aims to make it obligatory for bloggers and Internet users in general to identify themselves with their real names, thus terminating anonymity on the Greek Internet.
Greek minister of justice, Miltiades Papaioannou announced that the new law is aimed at the battling of electronic crime, while maintaining the freedom of speech and opinions; adding that “the Internet will end being a host for people with hoods“.
The measures will further polarize the current socialist government and millions of austerity-stricken Greek citizens, who often turn to blogs to criticize those that rule the country; often times, using extremely harsh words.
Greek bloggers are known to be opinionated and utilize online media such as twitter and facebook to organize their mass demonstrations against a supposed socialist government that has imposed draconian measures in order to appease the European banks.
It is not clear how this new law would enforce the declaration of one’s identity when creating a blog, as most Greek bloggers use free platforms such as Blogger or WordPress that are based outside of Greece.
