In these last hours we are attending a keybord’s crash between USA and Italy which is interesting to follow, I think, because it could tell us much about the age in which we are living.
On the 2nd of May the New York Times published an editorial about the necessity to stop populist politicians and their inclination to inform their electors with fake news, according to the idea that talk about serious global problems with incorrect data could have irreversible consequences for our future.
The article after named Trump and its tendency to questioning scientific truths such as global warming and vaccine’s efficacy by hysterical tweets ( “Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes – autism. Many such cases!”), the article mentioned the Italian politician Beppe Grillo.
Beppe Grillo, who is the leader of the populist Five Star Movement, is accused to have an active part on anti-vaccination platforms.
In particular he is charged to push the idea that vaccine could be the cause of the appearance of autism in children.
Posted on the Facebook group “Club Luigi Di Maio”:
“The New York Times accused Five Stars Movement to be against vaccines.
Do you trust more Beppe Grillo or the pharmaceutical companies?“
According to New York Times, Beppe Grillo’s actions and speeches increased vaccine skepticism and made people criticise the work of several professionals who spent their all lifelong studying vaccines.
The Five Stars Movement leader replied on its blog, which is used both as electoral platform and as a place where to reply to journalists (it is a fact that Beppe doesn’t like talk face to face with them), with an intense tone.
The politician charged one of the most important newspaper of the world with bad journalism: in fact he accused the NYT of fake news, since in the article there is not any link or reference in order to support its idea.
“We must immediately make a vaccine against the crap journalists compulsory” we can read in its diplomatic lines.
“The biggest damage I may have done to spread infectious disease has been infecting some peers when I was young, but veing my parents no longer here I can not verify, maybe the hooligans of New York Times can verify it. “
He then asked immediate apologies for what is according to him an “international bufala”.
How could be able to find where the truth is when in a discussion both the parts accuse the other of fake news?
What do you think?
[By the way, for the ones of us who still believe in facts, here are some evidence (I’m sorry, I found only Italian sources) of the New York Times statement about five stars movement position that could be summarise in the sentence “less and better vaccines“.]
BUFALAS 