Conspiracy theorists are trying to influence European election campaigns with disinformation and lies. Much of the fabrication comes from Moscow, but plenty is homegrown.

If media campaigns in more than a dozen European countries were to be believed, the European Union (EU) intends to force citizens to eat insects instead of meat.

The claim has touched nerves, especially in Italy, where variations of it have been revived and splashed across billboards during European elections to pit Brussels against mama’s special sauce.

But consumers of this claim are being fed pure nonsense, an example of countless fabrications launched or adopted by candidates seeking political gain at the cost of the truth.

The fake insect-food narrative, which first surfaced last year in a number of EU countries, has proven so popular with malign actors both within and outside the bloc that they’ve brought it back for the European election cycle to try to discredit pro-EU candidates.

But no one should be surprised that malignant actors want to impact Europe’s election cycle, with 720 seats up for grabs for the next five-year term in the European Parliament and many national elections taking place simultaneously as part of a record year for elections worldwide.

The EDMO reports a record-high amount of disinformation ahead of the vote about universally controversial issues like migration, agricultural policy and climate change, including even the resurrection of fake stories from years past, such as COVID-19 conspiracies.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Ma Laeng Tod (Thai street food- fried insects,) is delicious. The grub were like spicy-savory gummy bears.

    As some one who’s perhaps too adventurous for their own good (I’ll eat almost anything, once.)… I find this whole idea that it’s going to be forced patently ludicrous. Even if there was a push towards it.

    • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Italians, or at least Sardinians, already eat bugs. As expected, they make it into something delicious.

      Casu martzu[1] (Sardinian: [ˈkazu ˈmaɾtsu]; lit. ‘rotten/putrid cheese’), sometimes spelled casu marzu, and also called casu modde, casu cundídu and casu fràzigu in Sardinian, is a traditional Sardinian sheep milk cheese that contains live insect larvae (maggots).

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_martzu

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        maggots in… cheese…

        Eh. not the most disgusting method of fermentation I’ve heard about.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          Never eat those maggots live, unlike mites they actually can fuck you up from the inside. Which isn’t the reason it’s outlawed though, that’s because Sardinians have no sanitary source for the maggots.