11:00-13:00
Presenter: Martina Pennisi
The advent of social media and news reporting on a global scale have produced a new way of interpreting reality, upsetting the balance of truth and the credibility of what the Internet creates and disseminates. Internet Festival will address the issue of digital information through the investigation of fake news, online red herrings and the controversial post-truth phenomenon, named Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionaries 2016. What role does digital play in relations between citizens and institutions? IF2017 will be investigating whether digital democratic mechanisms are up to date, and asking whether the Internet is driving and redesigning the phenomenon of participation and the political and social dynamics of society. In an increasingly important attempt to understand which direction the mass mood is moving, polls seek, with varying success, to capture the trends of those who spread, modify, shape and exercise democracy and opinions in a form never before experienced.
11:00-11:30 // KEYNOTE SPEECH
Lercio (Filth) and the era of post-falsehoods
Speakers: Andrea Michielotto, Mattia Pappalardo
11:30-12:00 // KEYNOTE SPEECH
True or false? The crisis of truth in the age of digital media
Speaker: Paolo Attivissimo
12:00-12:30 // KEYNOTE SPEECH
Blue Whale & Co: living in a bubble of lies
Speaker: Davide Bennato
12:30-13:00 // KEYNOTE SPEECH
On the hunt for fake news
Speaker: Graham Brookie
Out of 7.5 billion people in world, around 3.2 billion are connected to the internet. We increasingly get our information using tools designed to connect, rather than inform, us. We are responsible for the technology we use and how we use it.
Disinformation isn’t a new challenge. People have been propagating false narratives to achieve ideological aims since before Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1439. But, today, technology allows information to leapfrog scrutiny within a traditional marketplace of ideas. Disinformation can spread on industrial level in ever increasing revolutions per minute. Discord has evolved with the information tools enabling it.
The good news is the same tools used by those who sow disinformation or seek to undermine our institutions are also available to us. We must move from talk to action and fight back.
You can do it, too. The first step is to have a healthy skepticism and curiosity to search for facts. But this is only one step. We all must act to build a new kind of resilience – a digital resilience.
Our power is in the proof. It’s up to each of us to do our part in seeking the truth.