Conspiracism in Italy: from ‘dietrologia’ to anti-vax radicalisation | Study
The study analyses the origins, development and risks of the conspiracist phenomenon in Italy, with a focus on the Covid-19 pandemic. Between 2020 and 2023, several episodes of violence linked to the anti-vax movement were recorded; 87% of users active on the subject of the green pass frequented digital spaces opposed to the measure.
The Eurispes study devoted to conspiracism and conspiracy theories in Italy traces the historical roots of the phenomenon, analyses its main currents – from conspiracist antisemitism to the Great Replacement theory, from QAnon to the Great Reset – and examines its specifically Italian forms, from the dietrologia (the habit of looking for hidden motives behind events) that followed the Piazza Fontana bombing to its penetration into popular culture, through to the radicalisation of the anti-vax movement during the health emergency.
A structural, not a marginal, phenomenon
Conspiracism is not an invention of the digital age: it is rooted in long-standing historical traditions and periodically finds fresh impetus at times of collective crisis. Social media platforms have, however, amplified its capacity to spread to an unprecedented degree, projecting into the centre of public debate narratives once confined to marginal circles.
The Italian case has specific features that make it a genuine analytical laboratory: a history of major unresolved events, the decades of the strategy of tension, a political culture marked by the systematic use of the rhetoric of conspiracy and a tradition of dietrologia that has permeated public discourse across the board, making the boundary between legitimate critical suspicion and irrational conspiracism particularly blurred.
The vaccine infodemic: the phenomenon in figures
Some of the most significant data gathered by the study:
- Online searches for pre-existing conspiracy theories rose by between 60% and 288% during the pandemic compared with the preceding period (Google Trends, 2016-2021);
- The announcement of the Covid vaccines in autumn 2020 led to a 905% increase in searches for alleged side effects;
- At the end of November 2021, more than 1.2 million users were following vaccine-related pages and channels on Facebook and Telegram: 58% were subscribed to openly anti-vax spaces (Fondazione Mesit data);
- On the subject of the green pass, 87% of the almost 877,000 active users frequented spaces opposed to the measure, with Telegram as the platform of choice;
- An analysis of more than 1,300 Italian Telegram chats and 3.4 million messages (2024) identified 11 active conspiracist communities, more heterogeneous than the English-speaking ecosystem dominated by QAnon.
From rhetoric to violence
The study reconstructs the sequence of the most serious episodes that occurred between 2020 and 2023: from the arson attack on the vaccination hub in Brescia (April 2021), the first to be classified by the judiciary as an act of terrorism, to the police operations against the Telegram channels “Basta Dittatura” and “Guerrieri ViVi”, through to the assaults on doctors and journalists in the summer of 2021. The research documents how radicalised groups, once the vaccine issue had run its course, progressively shifted their target towards digital payments, climate change and 5G networks.
A risk to democratic resilience
The spread of conspiracism is linked to broader phenomena of eroding institutional trust and convergence with populist attitudes, a finding confirmed by a study of a sample of 1,000 Italians conducted by a group of scholars in February 2023. The long-term effects identified include tax refusal, withdrawal from public education systems and low uptake of vaccination campaigns – forms of what the study calls a “silent secession” from the social contract.
The counter-strategies adopted so far at European and national level – content moderation, deplatforming, fact-checking – have proved only partially effective, since they tend to treat conspiracism as a problem of technical disinformation rather than as a symptom of a deeper rift between citizens and institutions. The pervasiveness of the phenomenon in a country is today an indicator of the quality and resilience of its democracy.
