Disinfo: Italian fight against coronavirus “fake news” could lead to Orwellian system of thought control

Summary

In Italy, dissidents from dominant thinking are increasingly blacklisted and silenced. There is a climate of witch hunts typical of a system that considers dissidents as enemies who should be destroyed. The fight against “fake news” related to the COVID-19 epidemic has made this trend increasingly evident. Fake news verification commissions have been set up, lists of allegedly unreliable Italian websites are compiled by a foreigner, videos on the epidemic “contrary to the standards of our community” are removed from YouTube. If this mechanism becomes state policy then Italian journalists, writers or bloggers such as Maurizio Blondet, Massimo Mazzucco, Enrica Perucchietti, Silvana De Mari, Danilo Quinto, Diego Fusaro – or politicians like Sara Cunial – will be blacklisted and put in prison. First, the most prominent dissidents would disappear, hunted by the political police, deprived of their freedom, “cured” by state psychiatrists and finally shot by a Party assassin. But in this Orwellian system nobody would be safe: the Party could also imprison people who express criticism by mistake. This new society would resemble Nazi Germany with its Gestapo and death camps, Stalinist Russia with its Gulag and psychiatric hospitals, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Such a scenario could happen in present-day Italy.

Disproof

Conspiracy theory. No evidence is provided to support the article’s claims that Italy is becoming or could become a totalitarian dictatorship that persecutes and exterminates dissidents. The article repeats a recurring pro-Kremlin narrative that seeks to discredit liberalism claiming that liberal societies are (or are becoming) totalitarian systems ruled by “globalist elites” and “shadow governments” which persecute anyone who expresses views that dissent from dominant “politically correct” liberal-globalist thinking. The article also contains the recurrent pro-Kremlin narrative claiming EU and member state efforts to counter coronavirus-related disinformation are attempts to censor and persecute dissenting views. Italy, like the the European Union as a whole, is committed to respecting the freedom and pluralism of the media as well as the right to freedom of expression, which includes the right to receive and impart information without interference by public authority. This committment is enshrined in Article 11 of the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights. The proliferation of disinformation and misinformation around COVID-19 throughout the world has potentially harmful consequences for public health and effective crisis communication. Therefore, the EU and member states have been trying to counter coronavirus-related disinformation, including through detection, analysis and exposure of disinformation campaigns related to the pandemic. Neither the EU nor the Italian government are planning to "criminalise" or censor coronavirus lies. Read similar cases claiming that the West’s open societies are liberal concentration camps, that as a result of the coronavirus liberal democracies have collapsed and will be replaced by harsh military-medical dictatorships and that any critic of the EU is considered a politically incorrect dissenter and subject to media persecution

Go to search

publication/media

Geopolitica.ru - Italian (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 203
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 22/06/2020
  • Outlet language(s) Italian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Italy
  • Keywords: coronavirus, fake news, European Union, Censorship, Conspiracy theory
see more

Disinfo: Ukraine is going to launch a missile strike on Russia

Ukraine is going to attack the Russian city of Novorossiysk with Neptune rockets. They will not succeed, because the Ukrainians cannot create anything themselves. Ukraine is just using Soviet rocket models.

Jun 21, 2020
Disproof

The Ukrainian authorities did not declare that they intend to start bombing Russian cities. The modernisation of Ukraine's defence complex began after the start of Russian aggression, as a response to the Kremlin's occupation of Ukrainian territories. A sample of the brand new Neptune cruise missile was presented in 2015, shortly followed by practical testing. Neptune was created as the first Ukrainian cruise missile and it is possible to use it from various types of carriers: ships, aircraft and coastal complexes. The ground-based cruise missile is a fully Ukrainian development of the state-owned enterprise Luch, in cooperation with Motor Sich and other enterprises that are part of the Ukroboronprom state concern. The Kremlin launched the disinformation campaign against the latest Ukrainian development, the Neptune cruise missile, back in 2014-2015, when Ukraine began to modernise its defence complex. And while the Ukrainian missile was developed, and then successfully tested, Russian propaganda stubbornly stated that Ukraine was allegedly “unable” to create a new model of weapons. Starting from 2017, Russian media systematically released fake materials about the Ukrainian cruise missile, having developed a certain set of narratives about the Ukrainian Neptune cruise missile.

Disinfo: From a legal point of view, Crimea has always been Russian

Firstly, Crimea has always been ours, even from the legal point of view. Secondly, we did not get it – the people living in Crimea decided to reunite with Russia, and this is the highest degree of manifestation of democracy. When the Soviet Union was created, the right of withdrawal was stipulated in the treaty. Since the procedure of withdrawal was not specified, the question arises: if this or that republic became part of the Soviet Union, got a huge amount of Russian lands, traditional Russian historical territories, and then suddenly decided to leave this union. Let it at least leave with what she came. And not to carry away gifts received from the Russian people with it.

Jun 21, 2020
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the illegal annexation of Crimea. Crimea is a part of Ukraine and was illegally annexed by Russia. In 2014, Russian troops obliged the parliament of Crimea to organise a referendum, which was illegitimate under international law, and then formally annexed the peninsula and brought it under Russian territorial control. The annexation has been condemned by the UNGA (see the resolution A/RES/68/262 on the territorial integrity of Ukraine). No international body recognises the so-called referendum, announced on 27 February 2014 and held on 16 March 2014. A year after the illegal annexation, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted that the plan to annex Crimea was ordered weeks before the so-called referendum. The European Union does not recognise Crimea's annexation and continues to condemn it as a violation of international law. EU sanctions continue to be in place against Russia as a consequence of the annexation. For the EU's statement on the sixth anniversary of Crimea annexation see here. Historical background: As for the part of the narrative that "if this or that republic became part of the Soviet Union, got a huge amount of Russian lands, traditional Russian historical territories" (Ukraine is not named but was highly likely meant), the statement is also untrue. Crimea was annexed by Russian empire, then containing Ukraine, in 1783, already in violation of a treaty which guaranteed the independence of the Tatar khanate. In 1897, the first comprehensive census of the population of the empire indicates that the Russians are only one third of the inhabitants of Crimea, where they are still slightly fewer than the indigenous Crimean Tatars. The Russians only became a majority after the complete deportation in 1944 of the Tatars, who could only return after the fall of the communist regime. The annexation of Crimea to the then Soviet Ukraine, in 1954, was not done on a not ethnic, but geographical and economic basis, since the peninsula was adjoining and economically depending from the mainland areas, it means, Ukraine. At that, in 1937 Russian Soviet Socialist Republic received Taganrog from Ukrainian Socialist Republic. But Russia is not ready to "give this gift back " to Ukraine. There were several interchanges of territories between USSR's republics, which are all now sovereign States recognised by international law.

Disinfo: US surrounds Russia with biological laboratories for a future attack

US military biologists specifically create secret biological laboratories around Russia. The United States secretly collects the Russian genome and wants to gain control over it. The combat use of these secret biological laboratories has already begun in Ukraine. Moreover, the United States officially recognised that 15 secret biological laboratories are indeed located in Ukraine.

Jun 21, 2020
Disproof

Conspiracy theory about "secret" biological weapons. The US Embassy in Ukraine has repeatedly denied the "creation of military biological laboratories" in Ukraine. Over many years, the United States and Ukraine have only ever cooperated in the prevention of biological threats. The US Department of Defence’s Biological Threat Reduction Program collaborates with partner countries to counter the threat of outbreaks (deliberate, accidental or natural) of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases. The Biological Threat Reduction Program’s priorities in Ukraine are to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats. BTRP really has upgraded many laboratories for the Ministry of Health and the State Food Safety and Consumer Protection Service of Ukraine, reaching Biosafety Level 2. In 2019 BTRP started constructing two laboratories for the latter, one in Kyiv and one in Odesa. The Ukrainian Science and Technology Centre is an intergovernmental organisation established in 1993. The work of these scientific laboratories is not aimed at "collecting the Russian genome." All data on the mission of international scientific cooperation are in the public domain, and information on scientific and technical laboratories is not a "secret". Read the similar case that the US tests biological weapons on Ukrainians to further attack Russia.