What’s really behind the #DiMaioOut hashtag?
That the story of Mattarella’s re-election to the Presidency of the Republic has opened a very hard battle in the M5S (and beyond) is beyond doubt. Some doubts, however, arise about the alleged tweet-bombing against Luigi Di Maio: was it really a plot against the minister or are there really Web users who support the hashtag #DiMaioOut? An M5S voter claims to affaritaliani.it that he started the protest and does not accept being considered a “bomber” of the Net.
#DiMaioOut is among the trends, but has only been used by 289 profiles.
The top 10 accounts by number of tweets are fake, and generally support the positions of Di Battista and Conte.
It is therefore a clear tweet bombing operation against Di Maio. Interesting pic.twitter.com/ZwgGZGRdku
– Pietro Raffa (@pietroraffa) January 30, 2022
Alex Orlowski’s counteranalysis
The first to question the analysis posted on Twitter by Pietro RaffaCEO of MR & Associati Comunicazione, are the editors of Key4Bizwith the excellent help of WaterOnMarsa company co-founded by Alex Orlowskiguru of the Net. With the network intelligence platform MetatronWaterOnMars gave a very different response: “It doesn’t appear no bombing design, at most of campaigns, which to be considered as such must rely on Bots, or computer-generated accounts. On the contrary, the accounts used are all referable to real people. Water On Mars found and analyzed 884 accounts for a total of 2371 tweets. There are no Bots, but so-called sock puppets, or accounts that are little used and in a certain sense awakened after a long hibernation or multiple accounts that belong to the same person (this is a typical phenomenon among political militants). In our case, these are accounts opened over the years from 2010 onwards, with only the last two accounts open in January 2022. Only just under 10% of the accounts involved tweeted more than 10 tweets, with the peak of an account (Simo) who tweeted 128 times tweet with #DiMaioOut. So, with all due respect to the alleged scoop, no tweet-bombing, no bots created by computers, but actions of real people, perhaps mobilized by a concerted order, as often happens online, especially in the political and militant sphere “. Not even the fact that the profiles against Di Mario were located in America is confirmed: “On the contrary, all the accounts used in our case are almost entirely located in Italy. The counter-proof lies in the fact that when checking the activation time of the accounts, they are all positioned one hour away from Greenwich “, continues the analysis of Key4Biz / WaterOnMars.
The origin of the tweets against Di Maio
Affari Italiani has located the account from which everything seems to start and which responds to the nickname @Toxmagato. His version of the facts is very eloquent: “The newspapers and the media accuse me and all those who joined the # DiMaioOut of being fake accounts and some experts even see the bombing coming from the United States (and they should change jobs). I who launched #DiMaioOut have an account with a nickname, but not a fake one and I don’t do bombing. I only expressed my disappointment about Di Maio’s work during the elections for the President of the Republic, having always voted for the M5S, I ask: but in a country and in a free Europe can one freely express one’s opinion? I have not incited hatred or any personal action against Minister Di Maio, but I have only made use of the sacrosanct freedom of being able to express an opinion ”.
#DiMaioOut #tweetbombing #disappointed #M5S #voter