Italy Scrambles to Fight Misinformation Ahead of Its Elections
Two explosive stories began circulating in Italy in November. The first was about a nine-year-old Muslim girl who was hospitalized after being sexually assaulted by her 35-year-old “husband” in the northeastern city of Padua. The second concerned Maria Elena Boschi, a prominent lawmaker and member of former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s ruling Democratic Party, who was photographed at a funeral mourning the recent death of notorious mafia boss Salvatore Riina.
What they had in common was the potential to cause turmoil in an already-raucous political debate—one defined in part by anti-immigrant and anti-establishment sentiment—ahead of the country’s March 4 general election. Also another thing—they were both fabricated, and it’s not clear by whom.
The issue of “fake news” has preoccupied policymakers across Europe as multiple countries ready for elections. The term became ubiquitous during America’s 2016 presidential election, when it typically described false stories, often generated or amplified by Russian-linked social media accounts, that spread online. (“Pope Francis Shocks the World, Endorses Donald Trump for President” is the . He did not.) “Fake news” has since been applied to everything from outright fabrications to simple mistakes in news reporting, and even true news one wants to discredit. But in the sense of targeted disinformation designed to influence elections, the issue is particularly urgent in Italy, where a national election is a little over a week away. Numerous countries are experimenting
