Two men and six women, suspected of belonging to a structured group of online stalkers from the antivax movement, were arrested on Tuesday in Moselle, Rhône, Seine-et-Marne, Hauts-de-Seine and Finistère and will be judged, AFP learned on Wednesday January 19 from the Paris prosecutor’s office.
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They will appear for moral harassment by an online communication service, said the Paris prosecutor’s office. The dragnet, coordinated by the Central Office for Combating Crimes Against Humanity (OCLCH), targeted members of the group of Italian origin “ViVi” Where “V_V“, suspected of having harassed in a concerted and online manner in 2021 three people, including two elected officials.
“Warriors”
The two men aged 45 and 54 and six women aged 40 to 52 have been taken into custody as part of investigations carried out since the spring by the national center for the fight against online hate. Justice accuses them of having harassed in a concerted way three people – two elected officials and a doctor – between the spring and the end of summer 2021. A ninth person was also arrested, but left free without prosecution at this stage. The name of the movementV_V» would come from the Italian verb «live» («to live“) and its logo, a red double V in the center of a circle, hijacks that of the comic strip that has become a film, “V for Vendetta“.
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The members, who describe themselves aswarriors“, highlight in their digital profiles the mask of Guy Fawkes, a character taken from the work, popularized since by the hackers of Anonymous and become emblem of the defense of freedoms. In December, Facebook’s director of emerging threat investigations, Mike Dvilyanski, explained that the members of this group coordinate in particular via Telegram messaging. Volunteers had access to lists of people to target andtrainingto escape the automatic detection of the American giant.
On the networks, their tactics consisted in particular of leaving comments under the messages of the people targeted, rather than posting content. To get through Facebook’s auto-detection, they used slightly modified spellings like “vaxcinati” instead of “vaccination“, to say “vaccinated people” in Italian. Under the publications of institutions, elected officials or press articles, we can thus see dozens of messages appearing, sometimes perfectly identical, published in a short period of time.
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They denounce avaccine blackmail», «the real virus (which) is the government and the system that kills people and destroys societyand say “stop the removal of rights“. Harassment, when committed online or via digital media, is punishable by two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.