At 2:38 pm on Friday, January 31, Francesco Cancellato received an unusual notification on his phone. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and the messaging service WhatsApp, was informing him that his phone was infected with spyware and that he should get rid of the irreparably compromised device as soon as possible. Cancellato is a journalist and director of the online media site Fanpage. He is the source of revelations about the persistence of fascist and Nazi folklore in the ranks of young militants of Fratelli d'Italia, the party of far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni.
His phone was one of the devices targeted by hacking operations denounced by the American giant and carried out using software from the Israeli company Paragon Solutions. On February 6, the British daily The Guardian, citing "a person familiar with the matter," confirmed, as did the Israeli Haaretz, that Paragon Solutions, which prides itself on working only in accordance with democratic standards, had severed its relations with the Italian state.
Since then, the affair has continued to embarrass the government. It remains unclear who was behind the operation, but it has added to the climate of tension between the Italian executive branch and the media. "What strikes me most is that we haven't received any sign of solidarity from a government that thinks only of exonerating itself," lamented Fanpage's Cancellato, who can already see the impact of his situation on his work: "I can see that my sources are more reluctant to speak over the phone. All this creates an atmosphere of fear and mistrust."
A 'constant risk' of complaints
The seriousness of Operation Paragon is revealed in a context where the government has stepped up its attacks on journalists and taken over part of the public broadcasting sector, and where Meloni is renowned for her aversion to press conferences. "As far as the media situation is concerned, Italy deserves particular attention," said Dimitri Bettoni, researcher at Media Freedom Rapid Response. "Complaints against journalists for defamation, which are more and more numerous, are rarely successful, but they marshal the resources of the accusers and leave media professionals at constant risk." In 2024, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom recorded 157 incidents involving legal complaints or the adoption of restrictive standards. In 2022, the year Meloni came to power, only 46 such episodes were recorded. In the 2024 Reporters Without Borders freedom of the press index, the country dropped five places to 46th.
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