La disinformazione felice. Cosa ci insegnano le bufale

Dwarf elephants, nonexistent medieval kingdoms, political parodies mistaken for real, viral hoaxes and meaningless debates on social media. Hoaxes were once objects of curiosity, bizarre trappings of human credulity to be discussed between the serious and the facetious. Today they cause social alarm, as recent news reports show us: the digital shambles produced by the spread of an epidemic can undermine attempts to combat it at its root, or conversely facilitate a sensible and effective collective response. For online disinformation is above all a symptom of radical changes in new communication technologies. Living happily with it all is possible, and even necessary. To do so, we need to consider hoaxes not junk to get rid of, but rather fantastic laboratories on which to hone our skills. An original proposal to better navigate the new information ecology.