We all know fake news is a huge problem in political warfare these days, the Democratic Party have even pointed to Russian interference in the US presidential elections. Frankly we’re now in a battle for the truth as well as being in a battle to maintain our freedom of speech and access to free online material.
In this battle for truth it has been left up to individuals to report abusive users on social media platforms. Earlier this year there was a campaign to remove Donald Trump from Twitter when he posted a tweet threatening nuclear war on North Korea. Users felt it breached one of Twitter’s rules; “You may not make specific threats of violence or wish for the serious physical harm, death, or disease of an individual or group of people.”
However the campaign was unsuccessful and Twitter continued to play a part in the American President’s peace negotiations with the North Korean Dictator and vice versa.
So what do we do when we see high profile accounts that break the rules, should we continue to report them? Twitter as a business may not remove them as they benefit both from advert revenue and indirect endorsement.
However I don’t think we can stand idly by when we see a profile that’s a blatant fake account, especially one which promotes populist rhetoric that misrepresents the individual in real life, especially an individual who may not even be aware the account exists, or who may not even know what a computer is or that the internet was invented.
That’s why I believe we all need to report the Pope’s account @Pontifex to Twitter.
The Pope’s Twitter profile is clearly a fake account, pretending to represent Pope Francis or as he’s better known to his friends, Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Nowhere in the bio does it state that it’s a parody account or an account of the Vatican, which is why it needs to be shut down.
The evidence as to why it’s clearly not the real Jorge Mario is very clear:
1) Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina his primary language is Spanish yet all his tweets are in English. I wouldn’t make this point if the tweets were bi-lingual or multi-lingual but the fact they’re all in English is crazy.
2) Begoglio is head of the church, he tweets several times a day however he never tweets Bible quotes, very suspicious indeed.
3) The account has 17.9m followers but only follows 8 people, wouldn’t the real Pope know more than 8 people? I think he would. All the accounts the Pope follows are other pretend Pope accounts, it’s like a Nigerian scam, there can only be one Pope surely (I know, controversial).
4) The account always tweets in vague terms and never refers to real life events or real life people directly.
5) The account never tweets personal information or posts selfies or other indicators that this could be the real life Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
6) The account has been set up since February 2012 but his Papacy didn’t begin until 13th March 2013.
7) Pope Francis is 81 and has publicly stated that he has no idea how to use a computer, he’s also an outspoken critic of capitalism and refuses to own a smart phone.
I for one think it’s time we face up to the truth of the matter and end this lie, don’t live in denial, report the Pope. End fake accounts now.