Il disordine informativo e l'odio in rete. Democrazia a rischio = Information disorder and online hatred. Democracy at risk

Abstract

Hate speech is very present in digital communicative ecosystems; although it does not originate in online communication, certainly the speed and pervasiveness of social media and digital platforms have played an important role in the processes of establishing such communicative practices. However, it is impossible to understand hate speech without placing it in the broader framework of information disorder and its relationship with the emergence of the platform society. This essay relates online hate speech to the practices of information disorder, which, moreover, are increasingly characterised as systemic and functional to the fragmentation of the public sphere. The essay also illustrates how manipulative dynamics not only feed the information disorder but tend to transform it into a new disinformation order, moreover functional to the information system at the time of neoliberal rationality. This is also why research on hate speech and the fight against online hatred become indispensable elements in the defence of democracy.