A tweet appearing to come from the Les Républicains party and published on Wednesday quickly went around the web. “We have currently received 34,533 checks for the reimbursement of Valérie Pécresse’s campaign costs for an amount of €2,305.42. We ask the jokers who send checks for 0 € or even 1 cent to stop”, Internet users were able to read. If the message seemed to be true, it was neither more nor less than fake news.
Indeed, Vincent Flibustier, creator of the parody site Nordpresse, wanted to demonstrate how easy it is to create a false rumor. He has thus decided to take as the subject of his trickery the appeal for donations launched by the former presidential candidate, who now finds herself in debt to the tune of 5 million euros. To do this, Vincent Flibustier made a montage with a screenshot of the real Twitter account of the Les Républicains party, and the famous message invented from scratch. After simmering the tweet for a couple of hours, he then shared his mod”how to create a good viral fake in 5 steps”. He thus reveals the pot of roses and his golden advice for circulating fake news.
In particular, he advises tosurf on the news of the moment”from “flatter the belief bias” Internet users, “take advantage of the possibility that the tweet existed but was deleted”, and finally to “the hypothetical Streisand effect”. A logic which wants that the party Les Républicains does not risk denying information of the kind so as not to increase its visibility. He also advises his strategy of using an actual screenshot to lend some form of credence to the fake rumor.
If Vincent Flibustier has restored the truth, the original tweet has been shared nearly 10,000 times and liked by 56,000 people, while the denial barely exceeds 450 shares and 2,000 likes. “It continued to circulate massively because the virality of the hilarious lie is always stronger than that of the disappointing denial”, he commented under his last post.
It is therefore to prove, the Republicans have in no way asked the “jokes” to stop sending checks for zero euros.
