The logo of social networking website 'Facebook' is displayed on a computer screen in London in 2007.
Fans of Mafia supremos Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano have been hounded off of Facebook after Italy's anti-Mafia movement spurred thousands of people to infiltrate their pages.
The appearance of Facebook pages glorifying the two jailed former godfathers late last month sparked outrage among the victims of Mafia crimes and politicians.
Some have decided to fight fire with fire.
"At first I was disturbed by the content of these 'groups'," said Rita Borsellino, the sister of Paolo Borsellino, the anti-Mafia judge who was killed by the Cosa Nostra in 1992.
"I thought I would close down my Facebook page in protest, and then I realised it would be important to keep it as a tool for getting rid of these people," she told AFP.
This undated picture shows Toto Riina, a Mafia boss. Fans of Mafia supremos Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano have been hounded off of Facebook after Italy's anti-Mafia movement spurred thousands of people to infiltrate their pages.
Borsellino and other anti-Mafia groups have an antidote to pages on the Internet social network titled "Free Toto Riina," "Fans of Toto Riina, a misunderstood man," and "For the sanctification of Bernardo Provenzano," which each had up to 200 adherents.
"Abolition of the Bernardo Provenzano fan club" by Friday counted more than 6,000 members, "No to Riina's Facebook fans" more than 4,000, and "All those to whom Riina is not an idol but a criminal," 3,200.
Other users have taken direct action, bombarding the Cosa Nostra fan clubs with stormy and sometimes threatening messages.
The avalanche of reactions prompted two of the largers groups glorifying Riina to "suspend" their pages.
"Toto Riina, a misunderstood man" now opens to a terse message stating that the "founder has left" but that "the group should stay active so that it won't admit defeat by the idiots who came along (to the Facebook page) to piss us off."
The page titled "All those who respect Toto Riina" no longer carries messages or the names of adherents, just a note saying the group was "temporarily closed, until the infiltrators and moralisers go away."
"This kind of self-policing and internal dialogue is the most effective method," Borsellino told AFP. "Civil society has shown itself capable of reacting to those who sing the praises of the godfathers."
Banning the groups "would have given them more publicity and they would probably complain of censorship," she said.
Noted Sicilian writer Andrea Camilleri, for his part, deplored the trivialisation of the Mafia, something he said "is beginning to enter dangerously into Italians' DNA."
"If all mafiosi magically disappeared from the face of the Earth, the Mafia phenomenon would live on, as the Facebook case shows," he said. "I'm amazed, you think you've reached the bottom, and then as you can see, the bottom is ever lower."
The Facebook sites celebrated the two mafiosi as "men of honour," and "innocents" whose "hands should be kissed".
Riina, now 78, was arrested in 1993. Nicknamed "The Beast," he is serving multiple life sentences. His successor Provenzano, 75, was jailed in 2006.
© 2009 AFP
