(by Massimiliano D'Elia) The electoral campaign gets underway and the political parties begin to tease, with new means, the digital ones. This time they scramble on "fake news", after the rumors of Buzzfeed and the New York Times.
Buzzfeed, a few days ago, spoke about a network of sites and social accounts set up specifically to spread fake news. The article, signed by Alberto Nardelli and Craig Silverman, showed how several sites that implement this work of disinformation are attributable to the Roman entrepreneur Giancarlo Colono, owner of the Web365 company, who controls 175 domains and Facebook pages with a very high number of followers. According to journalists, unverifiable news is published on these pages, using the clickbait technique. Clickbait is a term that indicates a web content whose main function is to attract as many followers as possible, to generate online advertising revenues. Generally, clickbait makes use of captivating and sensationalist titles that incite to click links of a false or scam character, leveraging the emotional aspect of those who access them. Its goal is to attract those who open these links to encourage them to share their content on social networks.
Buzzfeed interviewed Colonus who said: “The sites in question highlight facts that most of the media do not publish.
The New York Times, on the other hand, spoke generically about the upcoming Italian political elections, putting forward hypotheses that see our country as the next target of the destabilization campaign caused by fake news. The article quotes a report from the Ghost Data company by Andrea Stroppa, cybersecurity expert and consultant to former premier Matteo Renzi.
The report highlights the connections between different online domains that fuel the protest against the political class by spreading false news, run by activists close to the North League and the 5 Stars Movement.
Even a page in favor of Matteo Salvini shares unique Google codes with another related to M5S and a pro-Putin propaganda website. The Carroccio leader's staff defended by stating that it was a simple accident and an involuntary collision by an activist. The M5S, on the other hand, solved the issue by talking about unofficial content.
Called by NYT, Facebook spokesman Chris Norton said the company is aware of the fake news problem. Especially during important periods such as elections, they will monitor and eliminate the profiles that spread them. We would be wondering how they will find the fake news and the real ones.
The 5-star Movement goes to counterattack, after the accusations arrived yesterday by Renzi, in the conclusion of the Leopolda, on the front of fake news. “There is talk of sensational websites, in support of one or the other political force, which would report the same Analytics and Adsense codes. And it doesn't take a genius to understand that these sites are born spontaneously ”, is the thesis entrusted to a post signed M5s on Beppe Grillo's blog. On the web everyone, even for the mere purpose of earning through advertising, locked in his room can choose to open more than one platform and publish what he wants. But this does not mean, the 5 stars clarify, that there must be an involvement of the relevant political force.