Raffaele Volpi President of Copasir
The Parliamentary Committee for the Security of the Republic takes note of the in-depth analysis carried out by Mr Borghi (PD) and expresses concern about the use of techniques to make news viral: above all the COVID-19 pandemic has been at the center of a widespread online disinformation activity, in which state actors, structured actors (think tanks, stakeholders, communication professionals) have entered , speculators and industrial groups with strong interests in their countries of origin), who intend to manipulate the internal political debate, influence international geo-political balances, encourage the subversion of the social order and destabilize public opinion regarding the spread of the contagion and prevention and treatment measures.
Fake profiles, relaunch of facebook posts, foreign sites that spread in a coordinated way on numerous platforms and misleading news accounts, are just some of the forms of disinformation phenomena attributable to the world of the web, aimed at creating information overload about the identification of vaccines, therapeutic remedies and effective diagnostic tools against COVID-19 infection.
The detected infodemic activity is part of a geopolitical context in which Coronavirus represents the perfect stage that some autocratic regimes waited to show a supposed - and unproven - greater efficiency and capacity, compared to western democracies.
Although with different postures on the idea of global order, the main actors of the disinformation campaign have inserted this activity in a framework of parallelism, positioning Italy as a target.
Moreover, the characteristics of the activity carried out were also subject to verification by the European External Action Service (EU diplomatic agency), which recorded the spread of fake news in English, Spanish, German and French in order to feed panic and create a climate of distrust by hindering the official European communication of response to the epidemiological crisis.
In this context, far from being confined to institutional offices and official declarations, international relations may also be affected by the action of a plurality of structured actors, who tend to support or discredit the state reputation not only through disinformation, but often with the spread of misleading, decontextualized or partial messages that reach the global audience. Taking advantage of the extreme sensitivity of public opinion on the issue, there is a tendency to stir up controversy against the European Union and the countries of the Euro-Atlantic Alliance.