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Berlusconi has no fans
Italian Facebook users were furious when they found themselves hijacked to groups supporting Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
Posted On Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 02:46:23 AM
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The Italian blogosphere was seething with anger as surfers who had joined groups expressing solidarity with earthquake victims found themselves hijacked en masse to sites such as “We support Berlusconi” and “Thank you Silvio”. Facebook Italia was inundated with protests after prominent Italian left-wingers whose names had been misused in a new “Soldarity with Silvio” site complained to Francesco Pizzetti, the privacy ombudsman. The Prime Minister’s alleged new fans included Giovanna Melandri, a former centre-left Culture Minister, and Stefano Pedica, a senator with the centre-left Italy of Values party. Marco Sodano, a journalist who was also among the victims, said the ruse amounted to “identity theft”, but the perpetrators were unknown. Italian newspapers reported that the new Facebook groups had sprung up shortly after the attack on Berlusconi spawned numerous websites praising his assailant Massimo Tartaglia. La Repubblica newspaper said that members of existing Facebook groups supporting the victims of April’s earthquake in Abruzzo or promoting Italian products had been signed up for new sites such as “We Support Berlusconi” and “Thank You Silvio”. By lunchtime, the “Fans of Massimo Tartaglia” group with 60,000 members had been cancelled. The fake groups “We support Berlusconi against Massimo Tartaglia”, with 380,000 “members”, and “Solidarity for Silvio Berlusconi" with almost two million, had also been removed. In contrast to the fake pro-Berlusconi groups, the sites praising his attacker appeared to be genuine, with comments ranging from “Long live Tartaglia” to “Massimo, marry me, I beg you”. Someone called Jack Di Spade wrote “Bravo Tartaglia, far from being mentally unstable you have shown great strength of spirit”. Another website carried a picture of Milan cathedral which when clicked on turned into Berlusconi’s bloodied face. Roberto Maroni, the Interior Minister, accused social networking sites of instigating violence and “disseminating hatred”, and pledged to close them down. However Pier Ferdinando Casini, head of the opposition Christian Democratic UDC party, said he was “against web censorship”. He said that in the United States President Obama was the target of “unacceptable intimidation” on the Internet, but they were not censored because the US was “the great frontier of liberty”. Facebook said it would “examine carefully all requests to intervene with content about the Italian Prime Minister and will respond swiftly, cancelling all content that is a direct threat against an individual”. On Facebook, it is not permissible to promote or publish violent or threatening content”. The notification continued, “That said,” it added,” we want Facebook to be a site where people can openly discuss and express their own views, respecting at the same time the rights and views of others”. |
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05:16:18 PM