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One of these papers - "La Verità" - is directed by Maurizio Belpietro, a "journalist" who worked for several papers belonging to the Berlusconi family and who was condemned several times for publishing false and insulting claims against politicians, artists, minority groups and whatnot. He has a long history of racism, mysogyny and homophobia and has recently added transphobia to the collection. 2/8

The other is "Il Giornale", a paper controlled by the Berlusconi family that also has a long history of fabricating false accusations and spreading racist, homophobic and transphobic disinformation. 3/8

In addition to these, a number of similar articles in English appeared in Russian-linked fake online newspapers, some of which have been registered only a few months ago. I won't be linking them but they're easy to find, a search for the athlete name will turn several articles from before the match accusing Imane Khelif of "being a man" on websites with names that are meant to sound like those of actual newspapers. 4/8

This stuff was quickly picked up on Twitter/X by Italian far-right and Russian disinformation networks that amplified their content and eventually reached Elon Musk. Musk felt obliged to share them even more widely. Italian right-wing parties have had long ties to Putin's regime, so it's completely unsurprising to see them spread the same disinformation. 5/8

Which brings us to the reason why this stuff was brought up in the first place: Italy's far-right government is running into trouble, being completely incapable of running the country, and has been isolated within the EU, even managed to fight against other European right-wing parties. This fall they'll probably have to enact large budget cuts which will be deeply unpopular, so they're trying to change the public discourse to *anything* that is not governance. 6/8

This case was the perfect occasion for them: they had the chance to simultaneously attack a non-white woman with the added bonus of throwing transphobia in the mix. Their revolting attacks lived at the intersection of their mysoginism, racism and transphobia. The perfect mix of hate needed to derail the public discourse. Non-Italian far-right networks picked up on it because it discussed an event that would happen on the world stage. 7/8

In case you had any more doubts about this, the International Boxing Association, a Russian-led organization whose sole sponsor is Gazprom offered to pay a prize of 50k$ to Angela Carini and 25k$ to both her coach and the Italian boxing federation. They all rejected it. https://www.lastampa.it/speciale/sport/olimpiadi-parigi-2024/2024/08/03/news/angela_carini_premio_denaro_oro_olimpico-14528975 8/8

@gabrielesvelto This does seem to be a textbook case of planned, coordinated, manufactured outrage going back at least to the IBA and seemingly coordinated through Russian disinformation. And, of course, why disinformation researchers have become such targets.

@jared you're welcome!

@erbion Italian papers as far as I can tell

@gabrielesvelto wow ... yes it looks like they were the 1st ones to use the word 'trans'...