I’m not OP, but I would say it’s not a well-written informational article, and the entire argument made by the author is to directly contradict the title.
The author seems to be trying to come off as an investigative journalist, but does so by trying to weave an entertaining story. In the parts where the author does make journalistic points (rather than creative writing) they often aren’t clear about their points. They vaguely mention things without telling you what they think that means. For readers, that means you have to work to glean the actual points from their story, both by deciphering what isn’t creative writing, and by unraveling their unexplained quotations and off-hand statements.
When they finally start getting away from creative writing, you’re subject to a bunch of info and quotations pulled directly from the Repubblica article before finally getting to the meat of the author’s argument (emphasis mine): “The report strongly implies that these sites exist to lure in unsuspecting customers, gather evidence of wrongdoing, then use self-provided names and addresses to issue fines.” There are a couple of quotes that kind of back this up. However the author even agrees that the quotes aren’t really supportive: “It doesn’t state that directly but most reasonable readers seem likely to draw that conclusion.”
But most of the discussion/quotes in this area are just telling you random info from the Repubblica article that is unrelated to this argument anyway.
Then the article takes a left turn and starts randomly talking about sting operation legality in multiple jurisdictions, and some random statements about the (il)legality of IPTV. I think the implication here is that law enforcement wouldn’t do this type of sting since it would be illegal, and what the targets are doing isn’t likely to be deemed illegal anyway. This seems like a weak argument, at best, but it’s the best I can come up with since the author didn’t explicitly tell us their point here.
As a reminder, the title of the article is ‘Bogus Pirate IPTV Portals Run By Law Enforcement “Entrap Hundreds”’. That means you’re going into the article thinking you’re going to get a story about Bogus Pirate IPTV sites. But then the author is basing that title off an article they spend their whole article debunking. That just makes it that extra little bit of difficult to quickly read the article. A more accurate title would have been "Italian Journal Claims Bogus Pirate IPTV Portals Run By Law Enforcement to Entrap Hundreds (But I Don’t Think It’s True) ”.
All in all, I think it’s a difficult read, and most certainly a difficult scan.
I’m not OP, but I would say it’s not a well-written informational article, and the entire argument made by the author is to directly contradict the title.
The author seems to be trying to come off as an investigative journalist, but does so by trying to weave an entertaining story. In the parts where the author does make journalistic points (rather than creative writing) they often aren’t clear about their points. They vaguely mention things without telling you what they think that means. For readers, that means you have to work to glean the actual points from their story, both by deciphering what isn’t creative writing, and by unraveling their unexplained quotations and off-hand statements.
When they finally start getting away from creative writing, you’re subject to a bunch of info and quotations pulled directly from the Repubblica article before finally getting to the meat of the author’s argument (emphasis mine): “The report strongly implies that these sites exist to lure in unsuspecting customers, gather evidence of wrongdoing, then use self-provided names and addresses to issue fines.” There are a couple of quotes that kind of back this up. However the author even agrees that the quotes aren’t really supportive: “It doesn’t state that directly but most reasonable readers seem likely to draw that conclusion.”
But most of the discussion/quotes in this area are just telling you random info from the Repubblica article that is unrelated to this argument anyway.
Then the article takes a left turn and starts randomly talking about sting operation legality in multiple jurisdictions, and some random statements about the (il)legality of IPTV. I think the implication here is that law enforcement wouldn’t do this type of sting since it would be illegal, and what the targets are doing isn’t likely to be deemed illegal anyway. This seems like a weak argument, at best, but it’s the best I can come up with since the author didn’t explicitly tell us their point here.
As a reminder, the title of the article is ‘Bogus Pirate IPTV Portals Run By Law Enforcement “Entrap Hundreds”’. That means you’re going into the article thinking you’re going to get a story about Bogus Pirate IPTV sites. But then the author is basing that title off an article they spend their whole article debunking. That just makes it that extra little bit of difficult to quickly read the article. A more accurate title would have been "Italian Journal Claims Bogus Pirate IPTV Portals Run By Law Enforcement to Entrap Hundreds (But I Don’t Think It’s True) ”.
All in all, I think it’s a difficult read, and most certainly a difficult scan.
Yes, what my fellow Canadian said.