Luca Donadel
Luca Donadel, an Italian videoblogger whose video “La verità sui ‘migranti’” played 2017 - 2018 a key role in spreading racist and defamatory narratives about NGO like IUVENTA and the rescue operations in the Mediterranean.
By using ship-tracking data and presenting himself as an independent fact-finder, Donadel popularized the claim that NGOs, the Italian Coast Guard, and human traffickers were coordinating rescues. The video gained massive visibility through social media, mainstream TV, and endorsements by right-wing politicians, helping introduce terms like “sea taxis” into public discourse.
His claims - such as NGOs acting as a “pull factor,” the existence of legal obligations to disembark rescued people in Tunisia, and the idea that most arrivals are “illegal migrants”(sic) - are easy to deconstruct when compared with verified data, international law, survivors accounts and expert analysis.
Donadel is an example of a highly effective form of right-wing digital propaganda. While factually fragile, this communication model has had real political and social consequences, particularly in shaping public hostility toward people on the move and solidary networks active in and around the Mediterranean.