What kind of public discourse on digital surveillance? A look at the “politicized imaginary” on GAFAM in Italian Twitter

This paper deals with the imaginary of the technological sector in Italian Twitter, our goal is to assess: a) who is talking about GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft); and b) what politically relevant issues are discussing. To do so we’ve compiled a database encompassing all tweets in Italian (n = 1643555) posted in 2021. These tweets mention at least one member of GAFAM. Analysing them find that political accounts (e.g. accounts with clear allegiance to a specific “camp”) drive the conversation and that around 8% of tweets contain political issues. Furthermore, we find out that Twitter as a social media platform had a “platformizing” effect upon the debate on GAFAM regulation, enabling the creation of specific echo chambers that somewhat follow the lines of Italian political forces.