Populism has been deļ¬ned in many different ways, mostly in regard to political ideology and political dynamics, but only in recent years in relation to communication variables. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the identiļ¬cation of a socially mediated type of populist communication profoundly affected by the speciļ¬c nature of social media. It presents and discusses empirical evidence on Italyās populist and non-populist leaders that use Facebook regularly, and highlights the extent of the overļ¬ow of populist communication patterns and ideological features into mainstream political communication. Populist ideology fragments emerged in Italian leadersā Facebook posts, thus leading to two main conclusions: ļ¬rst, populism appears to be āendemicā in the Italian online facebooksphere; second, political actorsāeven non-populist onesādo not disdain the adoption of typical populist rhetorics.