L'Olivo Santa Barbara

There are two initiatives in Italy to combat fake news by teaching digital literacy to high school students.  The first project is spearheaded by Laura Boldrini, the president of the Italian lower house of Parliament, to educate a generation of students to recognize fake news and conspiracy theories that circulate on the web.  The story was reported in the New York Times.  The lessons are a part of an extraordinary experiment by the Italian government, in cooperation with leading digital companies including Facebook, and is being rolled out in 8,000 high schools across the country.

“Fake news drips poison into our daily web diet and we end up infected without even realizing it,” said Ms. Boldrini.  “It’s only right to give these kids the possibility to defend themselves from lies.”  Besides tackling projects and work sheets, the students learn how their “likes” on Facebook are monetized and politicized.  They are learning a new set of the Ten Commandments, including “thou shalt not share unverified news,” “thou shall ask for sources and evidence,” and “thou shall remember that the internet and social networks can be manipulated.”

This initiative couldn’t come at a better time…just ahead of crucial Italian elections.  Amid global suspicions of Russian meddling in elections in the United States, Germany, and France, as well as in Brexit and in the Catalan independence movement, fake news and propaganda could damage Italy, one of the last major center-left governments remaining in Europe.

And it seems that Italy is fertile ground for digital deceit.  Frustrated by economic problems, high unemployment, and the migrant crisis, many Italians subscribe to all kinds of conspiracy theories.  It is called “dietrologia,” the belief that there is always something “dietro” (behind) the surface.  According to Alessandro Campi, a professor of political science at Perugia University, the Italian passion for seeing intrigue around every corner runs deep.  “All of this is part of the Italian cultural heritage” from a long history of foreign domination, to scheming popes and cardinals, to corrupt government.  He continues, “I’d say that the Five Star Movement [a right-wind group led by Beppe Grillo] believes more than any other political party in conspiracy theories.”  One example is the party’s rejection of childhood vaccinations despite scientific consensus.  Grillo calls them scans by pharmaceutical companies with the intention of “weakening children’s immune system.”

Ms. Boldrini claims that the internet cannot be forfeited to the fringes, and that the government must teach the next generation of Italian voters how to defend themselves against falsehoods and conspiracy theories designed to play on their fears.

The other major initiative in Italy is called “The Daily in Class,” which is sponsored by l’Observatorio permanente giovani-editori (Opge), an organization whose mission is to develop critical thinking in youth to make them better citizens of tomorrow.  It supplies schools with 3 quality newspapers each week.  By teaching how different newspapers present the same facts in a different way, the project hopes to develop critical thinking and the ability to distinguish reliable sources from those that are not.  This project is entrusted to the International Advisory Council of Opge, a think tank that includes the directors of the most prestigious American newspapers:  The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times.

Recently, Tim Cook, the head of Apple, met in Florence with students from this initiative: “The consequences of fake news are worse than one can imagine, because they are used to polarize society more and more.”  In praising the media literacy project of Opge, Cook emphasized the importance of considering different perspectives including those with which you don’t agree.

The director of Opge met with other directors from Silicon Valley.  An interesting concept emerged:  A person in front of a screen of a personal computer, or handling a smartphone or a tablet, takes on a more radical position toward subject matter that he or she reads compared to a someone who, instead, discusses the subject matter with a flesh-and-blood person.  They also discussed how fake news has become an instrument in a strategy that aims to divide:  Just the opposite of what the Internet has done so far—unite distant peoples.

Recent examples from Italy:

• Pictures on websites that falsely captioned a government minister’s appearance at a funeral of Salvatore ‘Totò’ Riina, the notorious Mafia boss, who died recently. The websites support the Five Star Movement, a web-savvy anti-establishment party.
• A video of former prime minister Matteo Renzi at an old news conference with President Putin of Russia: A false translation of Mr. Putin’s Russian made it seem as if he were blaming the Italian government for the national soccer team’s failure to qualify for the World Cup.
• A senator from the Northern League, a right-leaning party, posted on Facebook—which was subsequently shared 18,000 times–a picture of a man identified as a government official’s brother whose “no show” job, paid 47,000 euros ($55,000) a month. The man in the image was not the brother, and the allegations were untrue.

False information and false captions are becoming child’s play in the digital world; fake news is evolving faster than methods to combat it.  Fact checking is no longer enough to counteract the many strategies out there.  Fake news is easy to create and very difficult to combat.

Even in the murky world of internet subterfuge, content is sometimes easier to understand than where the content comes from.  Recently, an investigation by BuzzFeed, an American internet media company, unveiled a galaxy of websites and Facebook pages from the one family-run business, Web365, out of Rome, with only 6 employees and a handful of “journalists.”   On Facebook—Direttanews.it and iNews24.it—have more followers than the mainstream media.  The content from the entire network?  Articles against immigrants, nationalistic rants, and even religious hoaxes with sensationalistic headlines like “10 minutes and the tumor disappears.”

The strategies are varied and growing.  Some sites subtly mix real news with plausible, but erroneous, information.  Many use headlines that grab attention.  Much of the disinformation is politically motivated.  Some of it is motivated by “click baiting,” the technique of constructing sensationalist headlines to catch the clicks of users and the profits that ensue.  Some sites are motivated by both.  When Facebook shut down the pages for Direttanews and iNews24, a member of the family that runs the empire, said the content was “merely intended to attract clicks in a country fed up with the Democratic Party’s government.”

As elections approach in Italy, Mr. Renzi is obviously very concerned about these fake news sites.  An analysis of Google codes has revealed an apparent connection between seemingly unrelated sites promoting anti-establishment political movements critical of Mr. Renzi and the current government.  The official web page of a movement promoting Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right Lega party, shares unique codes with a page supporting the Five Star Movement.  These parties are not allied; they are even considered rivals.  But they share an interest in advancing the pro-Russia, anti-establishment and anti-immigrant agenda that has made the Five Star Movement the most popular party in Italy.  Any connection has not been verified.

But what is true is that sites that have been shut down learn to adapt and reappear.  No more invented sensationalistic news, but real news, copied in whole from national daily newspapers.  But with a twist.  For example, “Pensions, the Cgil [a trade union] again rejects the last proposal of the government” reproduced completely from La Repubblica, to which is added a little introductory paragraph: “Camusso [from the trade union] f…s gentiloni on pensions,” with lewd language and the name of the Premier written in small letters.

The campaigns on all fronts continue….