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Elon Musk ha comprato Twitter: il punto della situazione, al netto delle dicerie
Elon Musk, la persona più ricca del pianeta, con oltre 112 milioni di follower su Twitter, ha finalmente concluso la burrascosa e litigiosa trattativa per l’acquisto di questo social network al prezzo di 44 miliardi di dollari, e lo ha fatto nell’ultimo giorno utile prima della scadenza imposta dai tribunali. Intorno a questa vicenda girano moltissime indiscrezioni e anche vere e proprie fake news, e molti utenti si stanno chiedendo come cambieranno le cose con la nuova gestione.
Musk stesso non ha contribuito a fare chiarezza, pubblicando tweet ambigui che spesso sono stati interpretati come direttive o decisioni già prese e in vigore. Ma va ricordato che quello che vale, all’atto pratico, è principalmente il contenuto dei Termini di Servizio, dell’informativa sulla privacy e delle Norme di Twitter, che fra l’altro variano a seconda di dove risiede l’utente (per esempio in Europa oppure negli Stati Uniti) ma sono ancora ferme alla data del 10 giugno scorso. Lo ha anche ribadito Musk stesso in un tweet.
Valgono anche i documenti legali depositati presso la SEC (la Securities and Exchange Commission) del governo statunitense, che indicano che ora Musk è amministratore unico dell’azienda e che gli amministratori delegati precedenti sono stati tutti estromessi. Questi documenti registrano il fatto che il secondo investitore più importante in Twitter è il principe saudita Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud insieme alla Kingdom Holding Company.
Si sa anche che alcuni inserzionisti molto importanti, come Ford e General Motors, hanno già sospeso gli investimenti pubblicitari su Twitter in attesa di vedere quali cambiamenti verranno introdotti da Elon Musk. Molti addetti ai lavori, infatti, temono che le idee di Musk sulla libertà pressoché assoluta di opinione possano alterare le regole di moderazione di Twitter, che secondo Musk in passato ha “censurato la libertà di espressione” e quindi facilitare i disseminatori di odio e di propaganda politica.
Ma al tempo stesso si sa che Musk ha incontrato il commissario europeo Thierry Breton per parlare della normativa Digital Services Act dell’Unione Europea (ne avevamo parlato a luglio scorso insieme al collega Francesco Gabaglio). Questa normativa penalizza i social network se non rimuovono contenuti ritenuti illegali, compresi quelli espliciti e le minacce di violenza, e dai loro colloqui è emersa una dichiarazione congiunta piuttosto rassicurante; inoltre Musk ha pubblicato una lettera aperta agli inserzionisti, rassicurandoli che Twitter non diventerà “un panorama infernale di tutti contro tutti”.
Insomma, per ora le ipotesi secondo le quali Twitter diventerebbe un Far West nel quale si può dire e fare di tutto senza alcuna moderazione e si possono amplificare odi, discriminazioni e razzismi non hanno una base concreta, anche se è giusto vigilare affinché questo non accada, perché Twitter è un social network relativamente piccolo, con circa 240 milioni di utenti attivi giornalieri, una bazzecola rispetto ai quasi quattro miliardi di Meta, ma i suoi utenti di spicco hanno un peso mediatico considerevole, come dimostrato per esempio dall’eco dei tweet dell’ex presidente statunitense Donald Trump, citatissimi dalla stampa. Trump, fra l’altro, è stato bandito dalla piattaforma a causa del rischio – spiega Twitter – di “ulteriore istigazione alla violenza” dopo gli eventi del 6 gennaio 2021.
In attesa di vedere che aria tirerà davvero in casa Twitter, circolano molte ipotesi e congetture: per esempio, Musk sembra voler far pagare un canone mensile agli utenti per avere il bollino di autenticazione e per ridurre la quantità di pubblicità, ma non è chiaro se i suoi tweet in proposito siano seri o meno. Al momento l’autenticazione su Twitter è esattamente come era prima, ossia gratuita, e non ci sono cambiamenti sanciti ufficialmente.
Molti utenti si stanno interrogando su cosa fare qualora Twitter diventasse il canale comunicativo preferito di hater e disinformatori di ogni genere grazie alle nuove politiche dell’era Musk. C’è chi ha già deciso di chiudere il proprio account preventivamente, e c’è chi si sta ponendo il dubbio etico di quale sia il male minore: restare in un Far West e tentare di portarvi qualche parola di realtà e buon senso, per evitare che diventi una cassa di risonanza solo per gli odiatori, oppure abbandonare quegli odiatori al loro destino e provare a costruire altrove una comunità di dialogo più sereno, costruttivo e moderato. Per chi ha centinaia di migliaia o milioni di follower, e magari ha anche dei contratti pubblicitari legati ai propri tweet, la scelta non è delle più facili.
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Intanto, però, la gestione Musk è partita subito con un grosso inciampo, commesso proprio da Elon Musk. Pochi giorni fa Paul Pelosi, marito della Speaker della Camera dei rappresentanti degli Stati Uniti, è stato attaccato da un uomo che si è introdotto nella casa dei coniugi e lo ha ferito molto gravemente con un martello mentre gridava “Dov’è Nancy?”. L’aggressore, colto sul fatto dalla polizia accorsa sul posto e successivamente arrestato, aveva lasciato sui social network una lunga scia di tesi di complotto di estrema destra, di negazionismo dell’Olocausto e di accuse di pedofilia organizzata rivolte a vari membri del partito democratico.
L’aggressione era insomma chiaramente motivata politicamente, ma Elon Musk ha scelto di commentarla condividendo con i suoi 112 milioni di follower, sul social network che ora è di sua proprietà, la tesi di complotto delirante pubblicata da un sito notoriamente dedito alla fabbricazione di fake news, il Santa Monica Observer, che sosteneva senza la minima prova che l’ottantaduenne Paul Pelosi fosse stato ubriaco e che avesse avuto una colluttazione con l’uomo per motivi legati a prestazioni sessuali a pagamento.
Musk ha rimosso il tweet qualche ora dopo, ma nel frattempo la demenziale tesi di complotto ha ricevuto da lui un’amplificazione enorme. Se questo è l’approccio alla moderazione dei contenuti che offrirà d’ora in poi Twitter, non sarà facile recuperare quei 44 miliardi di dollari, con o senza canone mensile.
How Education Plus keeps schools safe online
From virtual classes to in-person lessons, the best learning environments may look different. But they have a few things in common: inspiring teachers, engaged students and a safe space to learn.
Over the last few years, spurred by COVID-19, millions of new users have come online to collaborate, create and learn. Because we support millions of education users every day, we think a lot about creating safe, digital-learning environments. It’s only when users are safe online that learning can begin. It’s why our products are safe and secure by design, and why we continue to invest in this area.
We commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact study around Google Workspace for Education Plus, our most comprehensive edition of Google Workspace for Education. The study took a look at the security, administrative benefits and cost savings associated with it, and this is what it found: Education Plus helps reduce cyber threats, and the time to remediate them, for educational institutions worldwide.
Additionally, Forrester found organizations using Education Plus were more efficient in administration, and eliminated the need to invest in other education technology providers. You can download The Total Economic Impact Study to read the entire report, and we’ve included some highlights below:
- 95% reduction in phishing incidents: Security and email filtering in Education Plus reduces phishing attempts by 95%, allowing IT staff to focus less on mitigating threats and more on optimizing security.
- 98% less time addressing phishing attacks: Quickly prevent, detect and remediate security incidents with our investigation tool. Email filtering in Education Plus helps IT staff focus on optimization instead of obstacles.
- 300 hours saved annually on administrative tasks: Education Plus helps administrators produce administrative, educational and security reports up to 80% faster with the investigation tool and Vault.
- $73,000 in time saved from improved security: The time usually spent searching for and deleting phishing emails and resolving incidents saved 35 weeks of IT time.
Get hands-on with Education Plus, and
understand the impact
Want to see how Education Plus could benefit your organization? Check out our new Education Plus Impact Calculator to calculate potential benefits and cost savings. Simply answer a set of 10 questions and you’ll receive a downloadable, custom impact report for your institution.
And whether you’re just learning about Education Plus or an existing customer, we’re announcing a new product demo experience for the premium features of Google Workspace for Education. Available to anyone, experience the real product interface and how your institution could use premium features including the investigation tool, security dashboard, advanced admin controls, Google Meet and originality reports.
Ready to create a safer digital learning experience for your school? Learn more and calculate the potential benefits and cost savings with our Education Plus Impact Calculator and product demo experience.
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Google’s new Viger office is an homage to Montréal
Google first laid down roots in Québec in 2004, when three engineers worked out of shared coworking spaces no larger than vestibules — including me, I’m employee number five in Montréal! Over the years Google expanded. For many years, we called McGill College home, and it became a place where team members shared milestones, forged community and built software that touches the lives of so many in Québec and around the globe.
Today, we’re proud to continue our commitment as we enter a new frontier for Google in Québec, by celebrating the official opening of Google Montréal Viger. Viger is a sustainability-focused office located in downtown Montréal, on the periphery of the city’s beloved Old Port. We’re also announcing $2.75 million towards Québec’s tech ecosystem and digital skills training.
The new office is home to a variety of teams that work on some of the most crucial products and services Google offers worldwide, including cybersecurity, AI research, Chrome and Cloud.
Explore Google Montréal’s Viger space
Montréal is often referred to as a medley of neighbourhoods, each with its own distinct identity. The retrofitted historical building pays homage to Montréal by reflecting the essence of five of the city’s most beloved neighbourhoods — Little Italy, Le Village, Le Plateau, Chinatown and Old Port. Every inch of the office celebrates the spirit of this vibrant city from the Farine Five Roses style Google Montréal sign when you enter the lobby, to the playful nods, traditional elements and architectural detailing of historic neighborhoods like Chinatown’s flock and damask, Little Italy’s artisan markets, Old Port’s industrial roots, and Le Village’s festive spirit.
The building is equipped with the latest LEED Gold sustainability standards, and includes enhanced ventilation that helps conserve energy and sustainably sourced furniture and materials. Throughout the space you can discover carefully curated art from Québec artists, which aims to inspire employees and strengthen connections that Google maintains with local makers. Some of the artists featured include Nadia Myre, a Montréal-based member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, and Bryan Beyung, a street artist and painter born in Montréal into a Chinese-Cambodian refugee family.
To acknowledge Indigenous connection and stewardship to the land where Google Montréal exists, and to help remind Google team members of this history, we named many of our meeting rooms after local tree species in the Kanienʼkéha (Mohawk) language. The name selection process was conducted in consultation with the nearby Mohawk community of Kahnawake. A native Kanienʼkéha speaker helped ensure spellings were correct, and traditions and cultural practices were respected.
Supporting Québec’s tech ecosystem
Today, we are also excited to announce a commitment to Québec’s tech ecosystem of over $2.75 million. This funding will support curiosity-driven research that tackles some of the most important 21st century challenges and catalyze Québec’s future digital builders and innovators:
- Google Canada is committed to pushing the boundaries of deep learning research and is renewing its collaboration with Mila by providing a $1.5M grant for 2023. The funding will help support fundamental AI research projects in areas like AI for Humanity, climate change and sustainable agriculture. Support will also be provided to increase successful participation of students and faculty from underrepresented groups in computing research careers.
Google.org Support:
- To create new opportunities for students across Québec looking to build digital skills, Google.org is providing a grant to Digital Moment (formerly Kids Code Jeunesse) to help their organization launch The Quebec Digital Literacy Project, a program aimed to equip teachers & students in grades 3-12 with digital skills.
- To help job seekers in Québec gain the technical and digital skills required in the current job market, Google is now offering the Project Management and IT Support Google Career Certificates in French. The courses will be available to the public on Coursera, a global online learning platform. Google.org will also provide a grant to NPower Canada to deliver the Google Career Certificates in Québec. NPower Canada will offer need-based scholarships to the programs that will be distributed through local workforce development nonprofitsLa Maison de l’Amitié and AIM CROIT.
- Google and Google.org are providing additional support to local Québec organizations, like Startup Montreal, Pathways to Education, E2 Adventures, UpstartED, AI4Good Lab and Resilience Montréal. These organizations work to tackle digital skilling, fostering startup communities, STEM education, job training and often support some of Québec’s most underrepresented communities.
For over 16 years, I’ve watched our team in Québec grow and work on some of Google’s most beloved products. Today, I’m proud to continue this journey and expand our commitment to Québec’s tech ecosystem. I look forward to what the next 20 years brings.
<div>How we’re using AI to help address the climate crisis</div>
Communities around the world are facing the effects of climate change — from devastating floods and wildfires to challenges around food security. As global leaders meet in Egypt for COP27, a key area of focus will be on how we can work together to address the climate change crisis and implement sustainable solutions. At Google, we’re investing in technologies that can help communities prepare for and respond to climate-related disasters and threats.
Tools to alert people and governments about immediate risks
Natural disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change. As part of our Crisis Response efforts, we’re working to bring trusted information to people in critical moments to keep them safe and informed. To do so, we rely on the research and development of our AI-powered technologies and longstanding partnerships with frontline emergency workers and organizations. Here’s a look at some of our crisis response efforts and new ways we’re expanding these tools.
- Floods: Catastrophic damage from flooding affects more than 250 million people every year. In 2018, we launched our flood forecasting initiative that uses machine learning models to provide people with detailed alerts. In 2021, we sent 115 million flood alert notifications to 23 million people over Search and Maps, helping save countless lives. Today, we’re expanding our flood forecasts to river basins in 18 additional countries across Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. We’re also announcing the global launch of the new FloodHub, a platform that displays flood forecasts and shows when and where floods may occur to help people directly at risk and provide critical information to aid organizations and governments. This expansion in geographic coverage is possible thanks to our recent breakthroughs in AI-based flood forecasting models, and we’re committed to expanding to more countries.
The new Google FloodHub at g.co/floodhub shows forecasts for riverine floods. Forecasts are now available in 18 additional countries: Brazil, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Angola, South Sudan, Namibia, Liberia, South Africa.
- Wildfires: Wildfires affect hundreds of thousands of people each year, and are increasing in frequency and size. I experienced firsthand the need for accurate information when wildfires occur and this inspired our crisis response work. We detect wildfire boundaries using new AI models based on satellite imagery and show their real-time location in Search and Maps. Since July, we’ve covered more than 30 big wildfire events in the U.S. and Canada, helping inform people and firefighting teams with over 7 million views in Search and Maps. Today, wildfire detection is now available in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and parts of Australia.
- Hurricanes: Access to authoritative forecasts and safety information about hurricanes can be life-saving. In the days before a hurricane in North America or a typhoon in Japan, detailed forecasts from authoritative sources appear on SOS Alerts in Search and Maps to show a storm’s predicted trajectory. We’re also using machine learning to analyze satellite imagery after disasters and identify which areas need help. When Hurricane Ian hit Florida in September, this technology was deployed in partnership with Google.org grantee GiveDirectly to quickly allocate aid to those most affected.
Managing current and future climate impacts
Climate change poses a threat to our world’s natural resources and food security. We’re working with governments, organizations and communities to provide information and technologies to help address these changes.
- Keeping cities greener and healthier: Extreme temperatures and poor air quality are increasingly common in cities and can impact public health. To mitigate this, our Project Green Light uses AI to optimize traffic lights at intersections around the world with the aim to help minimize congestion and related pollution. Project Air View also brings detailed air quality maps to scientists, policymakers and communities. And we’re working to expand our Environmental Insights Explorer’s Tree Canopy Insights tool to hundreds of cities by the end of this year so they can use trees to lower street-level temperatures and improve quality of life.
- Meeting the world’s growing demand for food: Mineral — a project from X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory — is working to build a more sustainable and productive food system. The team is joining diverse data sets in radically new ways — from soil and weather data to drone and satellite images — and using AI to reveal insights never before possible about what’s happening with crops. As part of our Startups For Sustainable Development program, we’re also supporting startups addressing food security. These include startups like OKO, which provides crop insurance to keep farmers in business in case of adverse weather events and has reached tens of thousands of farmers in Mali and Uganda.
- Helping farmers protect their crops: Pest infestations can threaten entire crops and impact the livelihoods of millions. In collaboration with InstaDeep and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, our team at the Google AI Center in Ghana is using AI to better detect locust outbreaks so that it’s possible to implement control measures. In India, Google.org Fellows worked with Wadhwani AI to create an AI-powered app that helps identify and treat infestations of pests, resulting in a 20% reduction in pesticide sprays and a 26% increase in profit margins for farmers. Google Cloud is also working with agricultural technology companies to use machine learning and cloud services to improve crop yields.
- Analyzing a changing planet: Using Google Cloud and Google Earth Engine, organizations and businesses can better assess and manage climate risks. For example, the U.S. Forest Service uses these tools to analyze land-cover changes to better respond to new wildfire threats and monitor the impacts of invasive insects, diseases and droughts. Similarly, the Bank of Montreal is integrating climate data — like precipitation trends — into its business strategy and risk management for clients.
AI already plays a critical role in addressing many urgent, climate-related challenges. It is important that we continue to invest in research and raise awareness about why we are doing this work. Google Arts & Culture has collaborated with artists on the Culture meets Climate collection so everyone can explore more perspectives on climate change. And at COP27 we hope to generate more awareness and engage in productive discussions about how to use AI, innovations, and shared data to help global communities address the changing climate.
3 ways AI is scaling helpful technologies worldwide
I was first introduced to neural networks as an undergraduate in 1990. Back then, many people in the AI community were excited about the potential of neural networks, which were impressive, but couldn’t yet accomplish important, real-world tasks. I was excited, too! I did my senior thesis on using parallel computation to train neural networks, thinking we only needed 32X more compute power to get there. I was way off. At that time, we needed 1 million times as much computational power.
A short 21 years later, with exponentially more computational power, it was time to take another crack at neural networks. In 2011, I and a few others at Google started training very large neural networks using millions of randomly selected frames from videos online. The results were remarkable. Without explicit training, the system automatically learned to recognize different objects (especially cats, the Internet is full of cats). This was one transformational discovery in AI among a long string of successes that is still ongoing — at Google and elsewhere.
I share my own history of neural networks to illustrate that, while progress in AI might feel especially fast right now, it’s come from a long arc of progress. In fact, prior to 2012, computers had a really difficult time seeing, hearing, or understanding spoken or written language. Over the past 10 years we’ve made especially rapid progress in AI.
Today, we’re excited about many recent advances in AI that Google is leading — not just on the technical side, but in responsibly deploying it in ways that help people around the world. That means deploying AI in Google Cloud, in our products from Pixel phones to Google Search, and in many fields of science and other human endeavors.
We’re aware of the challenges and risks that AI poses as an emerging technology. We were the first major company to release and operationalize a set of AI Principles, and following them has actually (and some might think counterintuitively) allowed us to focus on making rapid progress on technologies that can be helpful to everyone. Getting AI right needs to be a collective effort — involving not just researchers, but domain experts, developers, community members, businesses, governments and citizens.
I’m happy to make announcements in three transformative areas of AI today: first, using AI to make technology accessible in many more languages. Second, exploring how AI might bolster creativity. And third, in AI for Social Good, including climate adaptation.
1. Supporting 1,000 languages with AI
Language is fundamental to how people communicate and make sense of the world. So it’s no surprise it’s also the most natural way people engage with technology. But more than 7,000 languages are spoken around the world, and only a few are well represented online today. That means traditional approaches to training language models on text from the web fail to capture the diversity of how we communicate globally. This has historically been an obstacle in the pursuit of our mission to make the world’s information universally accessible and useful.
That’s why today we’re announcing the 1,000 Languages Initiative, an ambitious commitment to build an AI model that will support the 1,000 most spoken languages, bringing greater inclusion to billions of people in marginalized communities all around the world. This will be a many years undertaking – some may even call it a moonshot – but we are already making meaningful strides here and see the path clearly. Technology has been changing at a rapid clip – from the way people use it to what it’s capable of. Increasingly, we see people finding and sharing information via new modalities like images, videos, and speech. And our most advanced language models are multimodal – meaning they’re capable of unlocking information across these many different formats. With these seismic shifts come new opportunities.
As part of our this initiative and our focus on multimodality, we’ve developed a Universal Speech Model — or USM — that’s trained on over 400 languages, making it the largest language coverage seen in a speech model to date. As we expand on this work, we’re partnering with communities across the world to source representative speech data. We recently announced voice typing for 9 more African languages on Gboard by working closely with researchers and organizations in Africa to create and publish data. And in South Asia, we are actively working with local governments, NGOs, and academic institutions to eventually collect representative audio samples from across all the regions’ dialects and languages.
2. Empowering creators and artists with AI
AI-powered generative models have the potential to unlock creativity, helping people across cultures express themselves using video, imagery, and design in ways that they previously could not.
Our researchers have been hard at work developing models that lead the field in terms of quality, generating images that human raters prefer over other models. We recently shared important breakthroughs, applying our diffusion model to video sequences and generating long coherent videos for a sequence of text prompts. We can combine these techniques to produce video — for the first time, today we’re sharing AI-generated super-resolution video:
We’ll soon be bringing our text-to-image generation technologies to AI Test Kitchen, which provides a way for people to learn about, experience, and give feedback on emerging AI technology. We look forward to hearing feedback from users on these demos in AI Test Kitchen Season 2. You’ll be able to build themed cities with “City Dreamer” and design friendly monster characters that can move, dance, and jump with “Wobble” — all by using text prompts.
In addition to 2D images, text-to-3D is now a reality with DreamFusion, which produces a three-dimensional model that can be viewed from any angle and can be composited into any 3D environment. Researchers are also making significant progress in the audio generation space with AudioLM, a model that learns to generate realistic speech and piano music by listening to audio only. In the same way a language model might predict the words and sentences that follow a text prompt, AudioLM can predict which sounds should follow after a few seconds of an audio prompt.
We’re collaborating with creative communities globally as we develop these tools. For example, we’re working with writers using Wordcraft, which is built on our state-of-the-art dialog system LaMDA, to experiment with AI-powered text generation. You can read the first volume of these stories at the Wordcraft Writers Workshop.
3. Addressing climate change and health challenges with AI
AI also has great potential to address the effects of climate change, including helping people adapt to new challenges. One of the worst is wildfires, which affect hundreds of thousands of people today, and are increasing in frequency and scale.
Today, I’m excited to share that we’ve advanced our use of satellite imagery to train AI models to identify and track wildfires in real time, helping predict how they will evolve and spread. We’ve launched this wildfire tracking system in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and are rolling out in parts of Australia, and since July we’ve covered more than 30 big wildfire events in the U.S. and Canada, helping inform our users and firefighting teams with over 7 million views in Google Search and Maps.
We’re also using AI to forecast floods, another extreme weather pattern exacerbated by climate change. We’ve already helped communities to predict when floods will hit and how deep the waters will get — in 2021, we sent 115 million flood alert notifications to 23 million people over Google Search and Maps, helping save countless lives. Today, we’re sharing that we’re now expanding our coverage to more countries in South America (Brazil and Colombia), Sub-Saharan Africa (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Angola, South Sudan, Namibia, Liberia, and South Africa), and South Asia (Sri Lanka). We’ve used an AI technique called transfer learning to make it work in areas where there’s less data available. We’re also announcing the global launch of Google FloodHub, a new platform that displays when and where floods may occur. We’ll also be bringing this information to Google Search and Maps in the future to help more people to reach safety in flooding situations.
Finally, AI is helping provide ever more access to healthcare in under-resourced regions. For example, we’re researching ways AI can help read and analyze outputs from low-cost ultrasound devices, giving parents the information they need to identify issues earlier in a pregnancy. We also plan to continue to partner with caregivers and public health agencies to expand access to diabetic retinopathy screening through our Automated Retinal Disease Assessment tool (ARDA). Through ARDA, we’ve successfully screened more than 150,000 patients in countries like India, Thailand, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom across deployed use and prospective studies — more than half of those in 2022 alone. Further, we’re exploring how AI can help your phone detect respiratory and heart rates. This work is part of Google Health’s broader vision, which includes making healthcare more accessible for anyone with a smartphone.
AI in the years ahead
Our advancements in neural network architectures, machine learning algorithms and new approaches to hardware for machine learning have helped AI solve important, real-world problems for billions of people. Much more is to come. What we’re sharing today is a hopeful vision for the future — AI is letting us reimagine how technology can be helpful. We hope you’ll join us as we explore these new capabilities and use this technology to improve people’s lives around the world.
Antibufala: lettiere igieniche nelle toilette delle scuole americane per venire incontro agli studenti furry! (non è vero)
Un errore giornalistico di mancata verifica della fonte di un tweet comico, come quello raccontato nella notizia precedente, è tutto sommato un incidente che ha poche conseguenze oltre a ispirare, si spera, maggiore cautela nel condividere contenuti trovati nei social network. Ma non sempre le conseguenze sono così lievi. Dagli Stati Uniti arriva una storia di fake news assurda che sta avendo risvolti molto dolorosi e ha un’origine ancora più triste.
Numerosi esponenti politici repubblicani hanno dichiarato pubblicamente, e in tutta serietà, che – e qui preciso subito che quello che sto per dire adesso non è assolutamente vero – nelle toilette di varie scuole americane verrebbero predisposte delle lettiere igieniche per venire incontro alle esigenze dei ragazzi e delle ragazze che si identificano come furry, ossia come persone che sono interessate agli animali antropomorfi ed esprimono questo interesse in vari modi, dalle illustrazioni di personaggi di questo tipo all’uso di costumi a tema alla creazione di personaggi da usare in scenari di giochi di ruolo.
Queste dichiarazioni – che, ripeto, sono completamente prive di fondamento – sono state fatte nei media o in occasione di eventi pubblici in Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio, Tennessee, Iowa e in altri stati del paese da almeno una ventina di funzionari o candidati politici conservatori e spuntano regolarmente nelle riunioni dei consigli scolastici per bocca di genitori indignati, secondo una ricerca pubblicata dalla rete NBC.
Tutti i distretti scolastici citati hanno smentito pubblicamente queste dichiarazioni. Anche l’agenzia Reuters ha indagato sull’argomento, smentendolo completamente; lo stesso ha fatto anche Politifact, dando lo stesso verdetto. Non c’è la minima conferma che esista anche solo una scuola dove sarebbero state piazzate delle lettiere igieniche per venire incontro agli studenti che si identificano come gatti, eppure si è unito al coro degli inorriditi anche il popolarissimo podcaster Joe Rogan, in una puntata del suo podcast diffusa a ottobre del 2022.
Joe Rogan just said that he knows a teacher whose school installed a litter box in the girl’s bathroom because a student identifies as a cat and her mother badgered the school until they did it. pic.twitter.com/OpF1zNlg01
— 1776 Project Pac (@1776ProjectPac) October 12, 2022
L’idea che possano esistere delle lettiere igieniche nelle scuole per venire incontro a coloro che si identificano come animali dovrebbe essere di per sé talmente assurda e demenziale da essere scartata subito da qualunque persona di buon senso, e si potrebbe far notare che neppure nei raduni dei furry viene predisposto qualcosa del genere (sì, ho chiesto). Chissà perché mai, oltretutto, una persona che si immedesima in un drago o in un rinoceronte dovrebbe aver bisogno di una lettiera, come se queste creature ne usassero una. Ma buon senso, fatti e ragionamenti non servono a nulla: la storia falsa continua a circolare. Su TikTok, per esempio, un video che ha ripetuto questa diceria ha accumulato oltre 3 milioni di visualizzazioni prima di essere rimosso.
Vista così potrebbe sembrare una delle tante catene di Sant’Antonio che circolano da decenni: stupida, ridicola e imbarazzante per chi la condivide e dimostra di diffondere dicerie pazzesche senza verificarle. Ma in questo caso c’è un risvolto tutt’altro che frivolo.
L’inchiesta della NBC documenta infatti che questa diceria viene diffusa da esponenti di una specifica area politica per dimostrare quelle che secondo loro sarebbero le conseguenze terribili della cosiddetta “agenda LGBTQ”. La loro argomentazione è che le lettiere nelle toilette fornite a chi si identifica come furry sarebbero il risultato folle di quella che loro considerano una pericolosa permissività intorno all’identità di genere, e quindi questa storia infondata viene usata per attaccare e denigrare le persone LGBTQ.
È una tecnica classica del cospirazionismo e della propaganda: si diffonde una falsità sensazionale e la si spaccia per vera e accertata, usandola come cuneo per ridicolizzare e far sembrare irragionevole la parte avversaria. Chi la diffonde la crede vera perché l’ha sentita da un’altra persona di cui si fida, come nelle classiche catene di Sant’Antonio, ma soprattutto perché ideologicamente vuole che sia vera.
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Una brutta storia, insomma, ma la cosa più triste è l’origine di questa falsità. Durante la sua inchiesta, la NBC ha in effetti trovato un caso di un distretto scolastico, quello della contea di Jefferson, in Colorado, che dal 2017 tiene a disposizione della sabbia per lettiere per gli studenti. Ma non nelle toilette: la conserva direttamente nelle aule.
Questa sabbia, infatti, fa parte dei cosiddetti “go bucket”: un assortimento di risorse d’emergenza da usare se gli studenti e i docenti si trovano bloccati a lungo in un’aula durante una sparatoria. Una delle tante che purtroppo insanguinano gli Stati Uniti. La strage della scuola superiore Columbine del 1999, nella quale due ragazzi uccisero con armi da fuoco tredici persone, avvenne in questo stesso distretto scolastico.
Queste risorse includono anche materiale di pronto soccorso, una cartina della scuola, delle torce e delle salviettine igieniche. Da questa tragica necessità è nata la diceria delle toilette speciali per furry. E deve essere sconsolante, per i giovani studenti, vedere che i loro genitori si disperano per il pericolo immaginario delle lettiere e non fanno nulla per quello, terribilmente reale e ricorrente, delle stragi armate nelle scuole.
Fonte aggiuntiva: Snopes.