Berlusconi’s testament, no one claims leader’s social legacy

In the will drawn up by Silvio Berlusconi and entrusted to the notary Arrigo Roveda there were certainly detailed provisions for all the material assets of the Knight, although, most likely, no direct or explicit will, only a line of consideration was inserted for the digital one. Yes, because as each one of us, regardless of being a celebrity, leader or ordinary citizen, lives the dual physical and digital identity, or a third identity, onlife would say Luciano Floridi, when he dies he leaves them unassisted anyway. But in the first dimension, the physical and material one, there is a consolidated regulatory framework that allows us to make it survive by transferring it to the heirs, while in the second, precisely the digital and fluid one, the built digital heritage is generally not claimed by anyone. and drifts into oblivion in the infosphere. Of course, it is also necessary to say that the platforms, although in a different way, have provided, in any case, for some time now, a series of protocols that allow filling post-mortem accounts, to keep them active, continuing to publish after having turned them into “commemorative pages” or after following the procedure for nominating a “legacy contact”. However, there is above all a tendency to abandon the account to its fate, to let it float in the fields of Elysees paved with silicon, without any management.

The fan page of Koby Bryant, NBA champion who died suddenly in a plane crash, has 21 million followers, but stopped on January 9, 2020, just as the Facebook profile of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo does not publish anything since July 7, 2022. Abe, assassinated the next day at the end of an election rally. But, like them, browsing social platforms we will find so many. Perhaps this may seem like a marginal issue, but it is not at all, especially when we are talking about leader accounts with millions of followers that have their own economic and even political value. Those of Silvio Berlusconi were arrested on June 5, a week before his death, and even today have a total audience of more than 2.8 million followers. The Instagram account has 615,000 followers, X-Twitter’s another 285,000 and TikTok’s just over 813,000. While the Facebook page, inaugurated on May 6, 2010, currently has an audience of 1,146,056 followers, all adrift. The issue, remember, is not the number of orphaned followers of the leader. God forbid. Therefore, it is opportune to make three brief remarks.

Firstly, it is important to note that our posts have an economic value, usually calculated by multiplying the number of people reached by an average CPM, a cost per thousand people, for online marketing. The result is the advertising value of the posts. To have a reliable parameter, Meloni’s fanpage, which has 2.8 million followers, is currently worth 5.2 million euros since the beginning of the year, that of Giuseppe Conte reaches 5.1 million euros while Matteo Salvini reaches the figure of 7.1 million euros. Secondly, especially for political leaders, social channels can be pilgrimage destinations frequented by the most active followers and thus keep alive a virtual militancy relationship. A treasure to keep in the safe at election times. Finally, the accounts, with their next dowry of six zeros, could be exploited by renaming the page for the benefit of other leaders or the party itself. Otherwise, in the case of Silvio Berlusconi, who ipso facto identifies with his political creature, one could choose to continue publishing thematic content in order to obtain, from reading the interactions, a series of indications on whether or not to share political choices. made by the party. Only at this moment, three months after his death (and due to the will that provided for a legacy of 100 million to Marta Fascina), no one seems interested in claiming the Cavalier’s social inheritance.

Source: IL Tempo

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