تاريخ التضليل الإعلامي | الأخبار الكاذبة ونظريات المؤامرة من زمن الفراعنة إلى شبكات التواصل الاجتماعي

Historian and professor of Italian studies Michel Britali and investigative journalist Giovanni Zagni search for the roots of fake news and disinformation in their interesting book “**The History of Disinformation, Fake News and Conspiracy Theories from the Time of the Pharaohs to Social Networks**” recently published in Paris by Publications "Mimesis Mimesis" (2025). In this unique book, the authors reread 12 eras Date From the angle of lying, deception, manipulation and distortion of the truth, affirming in categorical terms that Disinformation The media, despite its different forms and goals, has always been part of history Humanity. Perhaps the oldest known example of deception dates back to Ancient Egypt, to the time of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, that is, 14 centuries before AD, when the Phoenician city of Byblos, or Byblos, was besieged by the enemies of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Then the Pharaonic court received two conflicting letters, one of them signed by the opponents, claiming that the plague epidemic spreading in the city might be transmitted to the Egyptian army if the Pharaoh sent his forces there. The second, signed by his ally, the King of Byblos, denies the existence of the disease, and even begs the Pharaoh to send military reinforcements to support him. Which of the two narrations is correct? Nobody knows. However, since the two accounts are contradictory, at least one of them must have aimed to mislead the pharaoh, just as fake news does in our days, as the authors point out in many of the bold comparisons they make between the past and the present. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion So, from the letters addressed to the Egyptian Pharaoh to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, this book takes the reader on a journey through false tales that have left their mark on history. Some of them were spread with honest intentions, but most of them carried specific political or ideological intentions that changed the paths of entire nations, long before the term “fake news” was coined, which was born with information and whose methods developed according to available communication technologies.