Italians asked to report fake news to police in run-up to election

The Italian government has launched an online service aimed at cracking down on fake news, which experts say has become an increasingly worrying phenomenon in the country.

People can report what they think might be fake news via a “red button” system on the website of Italy’s postal police, the division that tackles online crime.

A team has been set up to analyse the alerts and, using specialist software, identify the source of the news and establish whether the information was authentic or not.

The move comes as Italy prepares for general elections on 4 March and in the wake of concerns from senior politicians that fake news could sway public opinion.

The interior minister, Marco Minniti, said the initiative was not intended to interfere with the campaign. “It’s an entirely transparent and legitimate public service tool aimed at protecting citizens from clamorous and flagrantly unfounded news,” he said. “There is not even the slightest intention to enter the political debate.”

Franco Gabrielli, the national police head, said the authorities were not creating a “big brother” but using mechanisms already in place to provide “a better, more professional and transparent” service.

Michelangelo Coltelli, the founder of Butac, a website exposing cases of fake news, said the phenomenon was a big problem for Italy, with bogus reports appearing daily in newspapers, mostly as a result of journalists’ failure to check sources.

“I don’t think [this initiative] is the best way to fight it,” he said. “We don’t know how exactly the police will verify what is fake and what is not. They said they will not interfere with politics, but most of the fake news, at least the stories we are worried about, are political.

“What we need is for newspapers to be checking their sources – this would be a first step, as a lot of fake news appears in newspapers, not just on social networks.”

The move comes almost a year after thousands of Italians signed a petition, led by Laura Boldrini, the president of the chamber of deputies, against fake news.

Boldrini has been a persistent victim of online abuse and bogus news reports. Most recently, a story circulated rapidly online about a 22-year-old nephew of Boldrini’s, called Luca, being hired to work in a government office for €8,000 (£7,065) a month. Both the story and the relative were entirely made up.

Concerns over fake news in Italy first mounted ahead of the former prime minister Matteo Renzi’s referendum on constitutional reform in December 2016. Some Renzi supporters claimed his opponents were behind a network of news sites that influenced the outcome of the vote, which led to Renzi’s resignation.

In November, Renzi, who hopes to reclaim his old job in the elections, called on social networks including Facebook to help the country “have a clean electoral campaign”.