Italy's deputy prime minister said he would ask state companies to stop advertising in newspapers. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFPLuigi Di Maio, a key figure in Italy's populist government, has taken aim at the country's newspapers, accusing them of "polluting the debate" and threatening to pull advertising by state-owned companies. "The newspapers... are now polluting the public debate every day and the worst is that they are doing it with public money," the deputy prime minister wrote on his Facebook page this week. Di Maio also took aim at the reform of a controversial EU copyright law that hands more power to news and record companies against internet giants like Google and Facebook. Backed this week by European lawmakers, Di Maio described it as a "disgrace", accusing the parliament of the "de facto legalisation of preventative censorship."

Source: The Local September 16, 2018 11:48 UTC