Social media have changed the way in which mafias are told and the iconography of the Godfather has definitely faded. No more silence, the bosses today do not hide but flaunt their power, flaunt their cars and jewels, flaunt their luxurious homes. “It is their new propaganda tool. We have gone from mafia tales to mafia tales,” said Marcello Ravveduto, professor at the University of Salerno during the meeting “The mafias at the time of social media” organized by the Magna Grecia Foundation in collaboration with the Pubbliemme Group, Diemmecom, LaC Network, ViaCondotti21 and the LUISS University.
“The mafias are a brand – explained Ravveduto – They learned from the Narcos cartels. No intermediary, only self-narration. Twitter has become their news agency, Instagram their magazine, Facebook is their generalist TV and TikTok their reality show. . The scions of the bosses are the influencers of the mafia and have their own soundtrack, trap music. ” And excellent killings are no longer needed to gain accreditation abroad, as Antonio Nicaso, writer and historian of the mafias said: “Criminal organizations just need to search for a family on Google to find out what they did, today the mafias cannot be closed in a few territories, it is a global phenomenon“.
Even in the cinema the representation has changed, as explained by the critic Emiliano Morreale: “Only Gomorrah changed things, first the whole Mafia narrative was indivisible from Sicily, an ideal” elsewhere “where to set all the things that happened in Italy and that we could not accept. The cinematographic representations of the mafias are not a mirror of reality, but a symptom “.
“This is what we have to fight – said Manuela Bertone, professor at the Universitè CĂ´te d’Azur – We have to fight the fascinating and persuasive representations of the mafias, the mythicization that transforms the mafia into legends”.
The President of the Supervisory Body of the Magna Grecia Foundation Antonello Colosimo, former Deputy High Commissioner for the fight against counterfeiting, spoke of how counterfeiting crimes have been transferred to social networks: “Only in 2020 did counterfeiting in Italy have a turnover of more than 6 billion euros, 4800 billion lost revenues for the Italian tax authorities – explained Colosimo – On WhatsApp and WeChat there is now 70% of the counterfeit product market. contact of the buyer, who then pays in bitcoin. The thing that many do not know is that the largest share of sales goes to terrorist associations such as Al Qaeda. ”
The meeting was moderated by Paola Bottero, Strategic Director of the Group and the network. The courses of the Magna Grecia Advanced Training School will be available from next autumn.
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