Fidel Castro, Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope
Benedict XVI -- Italian Tommasso
Debenedetti has killed them all in fake
tweets aimed at exposing shoddy
journalism that have earned him global
notoriety.
The latest victim of Debenedetti's unusual
hobby is British author JK Rowling, whose
death in an accident he announced from a
fake Twitter account purporting to belong
to fellow writer John Le Carre.
"Death works well on Twitter,"
Debenedetti, who is in his 40s and says
he teaches literature at a school in Rome,
told AFP in a phone interview.
Debenedetti said that when he saw his Le
Carre account had 2,500 followers
including journalists from major British,
German and US media, "I decided to
make John Le Carre say JK Rowling had
died".
Debenedetti said the tweet was then
retweeted hundreds of times and a
Chilean television station even gave the
false news as fact.
The literary fake artist says his aim in all
of this is to "show that Twitter has
become a news agency -- the least
reliable in the world.
"Unfortunately, journalism works on
speed. False news spreads exponentially,"
he said, pointing out that retweets by
journalists lend credibility to rumours
even if they are not actually published.
"In the end, everyone forgets what the
original source was," said Debenedetti,
who in perhaps another slight of hand
insists his first name be spelled
"Tommasso" and not the more usual
"Tommaso".
Among his many claims to Internet
infamy, Debenedetti boasts of having
forced Vatican spokesman Federico
Lombardi to deny the pope had died after
sending a false tweet purportedly from
the Vatican's Secretary of State Tarcisio
Bertone.
He claims his tweet announcing the death
of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made
the price of oil go up and that another
one about the demise of last Soviet
leader Gorbachev prompted someone to
go and update his Wikipedia page with
the day of his death.
Debenedetti calls these his "games" and
appears unconcerned about any unease
they may cause, saying that he comes out
and claims the rumour as his own
invention within an hour of sending the
first tweet.
"I only target leading figures who have all
the means at their disposal to respond
very quickly. I would never announce the
death of a lesser-known writer or my next
door neighbour," he said.
"I don't want it to go too far. I'm not a
crook."
Journalists "should be more prudent and
carry out all the necessary checks,
particularly in local media, local radio and
Internet sites which fall most easily into
this trap," he said.
"I just want to show up the fragility of
social media, where anyone can be
anyone," he said.
Debenedetti also has a more postmodern
literary side and he has created false
Facebook pages for writers Umberto Eco
and Mario Vargas Llosa, quoting them
saying improbable things that they never
said.
The grandson of a famous Italian literary
critic, he has also authored dozens of fake
interviews with famous writers which he
says he has managed to place in a variety
of media as the real thing.
It was Debenedetti's made up interview
with Philip Roth that revealed his
elaborate ruse after some US journalists
asked the famous writer about some
comments against US President Barack
Obama quoted in some media that he
had in fact never made.
Debenedetti does not regret his actions,
saying only: "I just wanted to see how far
I could take it."
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