Investigations began last spring. After months of investigation, eight members of the anti-vaccine group “V_V” or “Vivi” were arrested on Tuesday, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. These two men and six women, aged 40 to 54, were placed in police custody in Moselle, Rhône, Seine et Marne, Hauts de Seine and Finistère.
Prosecuted for moral harassment online, they are suspected of having participated in digital raids targeting two French parliamentarians and a doctor. Their trial should be held later this year and all face up to two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.
Resurgence of threats against elected officials
Coordinated by the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity (OCLCH), this crackdown targeted members of the group of Italian origin “ViVi” or “V_V” within the framework of investigations carried out by the pole national campaign against online hate. Among the victims of harassment are the LREM Moselle deputy Isabelle Rauch, the PS senator from Charente Nicole Bonnefoy and a head of department of the CHU of Amiens, sources familiar with the matter told AFP.
“At the moment elected officials are the object of threats by anti-vaccines and since hate speech announces acts of hate, it was necessary to act”, explained to AFP General Jean-Philippe Reiland, boss of the OCLCH. . The Moselle research section and other local services participated in the arrests, while the Metz cyber antenna facilitated the identification of suspects “all well integrated”, but unrelated to a health profession, according to General Reiland. The “V_V” bring together around 300 supporters in France, “including a hundred who are really active”, according to the senior officer.
“We have the right to disagree, there is no offense of opinion in France, and fortunately. But digital raids, online hatred, that we don’t have the right (…) It’s too easy to be behind a keyboard, ”reacted Ms. Rauch, asked by AFP. “They took my photo and used it on the networks. (…) It is still shocking to see his face marked with a swastika and that you are called a Nazi because you are for vaccination”, was indignant for her part Ms. Bonnefoy.
“Warriors”
The name of the movement “V_V” would come from the Italian verb “vivere” (“to live”) and its logo, a double red V in the center of a circle, diverts that of the comic strip become film, “V for Vendetta”. The members, who describe themselves as “warriors”, highlight in their digital profiles the stylized Guy Fawkes mask, popularized by Anonymous hackers and which has become an emblem of the defense of freedoms.
In December, Facebook’s director of emerging threat investigations, Mike Dvilyanski, explained that the members of this group coordinate in particular via Telegram messaging. The volunteers had access to lists of people to target and to “training” to evade the automatic detection of the American giant.
On the networks, their tactics consisted in particular of leaving comments under the messages of the people targeted, rather than posting content. To get through Facebook’s automatic detection, they used slightly modified spellings like “vaxcinati” instead of “vaccinati”, to mean “vaccinated people” in Italian.
Under the publications of institutions, elected officials or press articles, we can thus see dozens of messages appearing, sometimes perfectly identical, published in a short period of time. They denounce “vaccine blackmail”, “the real virus (which) is the government and the system that kills people and destroys society” and say “stop the suppression of rights”.
20,000 supporters worldwide
After devoting an article to them in June 2021, the newspaper The Parisian had been the victim of a digital raid on his Facebook page with “over 1,400 hateful comments” posted in just three hours. Harassment, when committed online or via digital media, is punishable by two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.
The “V_V” movement would gather some 20,000 supporters worldwide according to a report published in December by Graphika, a company specializing in social network analysis. Some members have also taken part in acts of vandalism against hospitals and operations to interfere with vaccinations, by taking medical appointments without honoring them, for example, according to Graphika.