“Hope he understands” – The man who let Franz Vranitzky “die”.

A Twitter account posing as Agriculture Minister Norbert Totschnig (ÖVP) tweeted on Tuesday the alleged death of former SPÖ chancellor Franz Vranitzy. Red deputy Gabriele Heinisch-Hosek fell for it and arranged a minute’s silence for Vranitzky in the parliament’s social committee, which was just meeting, as the “Standard” first reported. Shortly afterwards, the false report was exposed by the author himself, and the Bruno Kreisky Forum felt compelled to provide clarification (see below). “I decided I was behind it and then closed the account,” Tommaso Debenedetti, author of the macabre joke, explains to krone.at.

After the sensational reports of the minute of mourning in parliament, he came forward to speak about his motives. Is he the real one? Debenedetti sent the editors a photo of his passport, his statements sound credible.

“Show what people fall for”
Debenedetti’s scam is always the same: “I check whether politicians have a Twitter account. If they don’t have one, I create one,” he says in the krone.at interview. On Tuesday morning he created the fake account of Minister Totschnig and followed many journalists, politicians and other representatives of the Austrian Twitter scene. In return, “Totschnig” only gained a few followers in a short time, but when he then spread the fake death message, it was “unbelievable, important politicians were grabbed by it. It shows what people fall for on social media,” says Debenedetti.

He chose Franz Vranitzky because he is an “important personality” in Austria. “I hope he understands. It was not directed at Vranitzky, I wanted to show on social media what the situation is like and set an example,” the 53-year-old explains. He does it to show how easy it is to create fake accounts of famous personalities on Twitter and spread fake news. “In Musk times, it’s particularly easy there,” says Debenedetti. Tech billionaire Elon Musk recently bought the internet company, where he himself spread fake news and briefly allowed accounts to be randomly verified even though they were blatantly fake.

Notorious scammer
Debenedetti achieved dubious notoriety in 2010 when it was discovered that for decades he had been selling bogus interviews with famous personalities such as Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dalai Lama to Italian newspapers. He took advantage of the fact that the Italian press never checks anything, he told The Guardian in 2012. Tommaso Debenedetti now works as a teacher in Rome, but spreading fake news is still his hobby, so to speak.

“But my hobby isn’t fake news, it’s showing how easy it is to spread fake news.” He doesn’t just want to fool people, he wants to teach them something: the drastic fake news he spreads can teach people to be more careful when consuming media. “When there’s something on Twitter, a lot of people think, ‘This is important news.’ This is dangerous because Twitter is not a news agency. You have to check what you read there,” emphasizes Tommaso Debenedetti. It is therefore important that politicians in particular have a verified Twitter account. There is a high risk that someone will imitate you.

Fatal scam
His shenanigans have had far reaching consequences. In 2012, he spread through the fake account of the Russian interior minister that the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad had died. As a result, the world oil price rose. Other famous “victims” include the former Pope Benedict XVI, opera star Placido Domingo, and also Austrian Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke. “I already killed Peter Handke twice on the internet, which was believed in Austria and Serbia,” he says. In 2020, he created a Twitter account for the then new Secretary of State for Culture, Andrea Mayer, and spread the false news about the death of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

“I do this every week,” Debenedetti claims. “People believe that, sometimes newspapers report on it.” Only on Monday did he set up a fake account for Austria’s Education Minister Martin Polaschek, through which he then spread the news that the writer Martin Walser had died. Except for a few Twitter users, no one bit (see below).

“Currently several fake accounts online”
“I have started many fake accounts all over the world. There are now ten or eleven online. I can’t say which one,” says Debenedetti mischievously. He then reveals a few he wants made. Among them are a report by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and a report by former Cuban President Raul Castro.

“When there are new governments, I create new Twitter accounts for the ministers,” Debenedetti explains. So he plans to create fake accounts for German politicians, because many ministers don’t have one yet. A new fake account he created is that of Csaba Lantos, Hungary’s new energy minister. “He didn’t have a Twitter account, so I created it,” said the Italian. Can a Hungarian politician “die” after this? “Possibly,” says Debenedetti.