This is probably the biggest hoax in the history of Facebook. It happened in France and is one of the most discussed stories in the French blogosphere right now. It all started a few weeks ago with a simple third-party Facebook application that was aimed at designating, every quarter, a new “Facebook Worldwide president”. A young 28 year-old French man by the name of Arash Derambarsh decided to run for the presidency believing this was a real election (or faking to believe) and started to invite his friends and even created an official program: stimulate tolerance across religions, fight illiteracy, and promote French culture worldwide. Until then, there was nothing really worth talking about.
But here is the crunch: Arash landed at the top of the application and became “president” (for the record, during the first session the application had been installed 140k+ times and the “candidate” received officially 9k+ votes..). He used that information and got some coverage with French media that started to report the news and really believed that a French man had become the new worldwide president of Facebook without even taking the time to validate the facts or understanding what this title implied.
Then the infernal spiral fired up and very serious TV channels and traditional media covered the story one after the other: TF1, LePoint, L’express, FranceInter, Le Parisien, …They all mentioned the story as if this was real: check it out for yourself. Arash is suddenly becoming a star in France, gets his page in Wikipedia (update: and now a Mahalo entry) and is invited to talk about his presidency and his program for a few days; public opinion is with him. The guy talks well, has some political track record and finally sounds credible.
Of course Facebook has nothing to do with this, but nevertheless in some interviews Arash implies that he has a project with UNESCO and some backup from Facebook; he even declares that he has the power to reach, via a secret Facebook feature, close to a hundred million users, more than the French President himself. No one balks. Everyone buys it although this is really easy to fact check that Facebook does not have close to a hundred million users and even easier to validate the reality of this story with Facebook’s press department. Arash is actually nothing else than the president of FakeBook.
But Facebook users are not fools and a group arises, denouncing the whole thing. ZDnet France spots the hoax, bloggers follow up quickly and the truth comes to light. According to the inquiry made by ArretsurImages many journalists covered the news just because others did and because the “President” looked credible. And then finally a wave of new articles came back to the story explaining this was a fake and that Arash misunderstood the purpose of this election. Of course this is too late and the French press has been fooled all the way.
Many tried to reach Arash for more details and reactions but without success. Did he do this out of pure calculation or was his ego responsible for the whole story? The most important point: A simple user managed to generate the biggest prank in the history of Facebook and the press bought it. Hilarious, ridiculous, but also worrying and sad for the French press (a big chunk of it) whose credibility has been hit hard.
An excellent example of how the world of media has now been completely turned upside down. What breaks as news in the blogosphere and echoes loudly enough (with or without any fact-checking) becomes the must-cover story for old-school media outlets, like newspapers. Their staffs have been reduced, so fact-checking becomes a luxury no longer affordable.
Great story, thanks ! Now the main question is to know if ,after such a prank and the backlash, Arash will earn benefits (fame, buzz) or pay consequences. Time will tell…
Its good to see that new media has become a news source for old media. New media has been accused of not being a reliable source. But this example shows reality of old media itself. Anyways also I find much more news on internet then I can ever hope of finding on my TV.
Comes to show that ‘real’ journalism is actually the same as copy-pasting a news story without fact-checking. Not all of them, but a lot of journalists have become lazy. The quality of a lot of newspapers is going down pretty fast. You notice that all over the world.
The gap between traditional and online media is pretty large. So large in fact that it seems like an enormous mountain to climb for a regular journalist to dig deep in the history/truth of an online story.
I wonder how many journalists will admit that bloggers dug it out and if that would change the perception of citizen journalism. Although it seems possible, the mainstream media will probably remain in its ivory tower and lick their wounds.
Funny though, but how it is easy to manipulate things in the internet
What a sad story for the french press but it clearly shows that FB can play a bigger role in modern communication that one would have expected.
There’s a lot of irony here. Anyone notice the rampant grammatical mistakes, making the story almost unreadable? Maybe English isn’t Ouriel’s first language, which is fine (so NOT opening an immigration thing here), but can’t someone else read and edit? It’s a pretty standard practice, especially on a publication with this kind of coverage, to do that. Maintains credibility.
Like I said…ironic.
Somebody’s been spending a little too much time on Facebook.
@1 – Isn’t it “Fact Writing” now and not fact checking?
It’s nice to see that it’s not just over here.
This post is packed with spelling and grammar errors making it almost impossible to read. Doesn’t anyone spellcheck this stuff?
Wow…how can you be so stupid?
Hey, I just wrote to Le Monde that I am the first French man to win the US primaries…wait to see the cover story tomorrow!!!
This is to funny! I want to become the face book president! I bet that news station feels like a JACKa$$
Man, mainstream media sure is reliable. Unlike those jerks on the Internet, you can trust them to vet all their stories and check all their facts.
This is a hilariously awesome prank, and I can’t believe he got away with it. Not to pick on the French media, because I get the feeling this could happen in a lot of countries, but it’s absolutely pathetic that a ridiculous story like this can gain that much momentun.
> … sad for the French press whose credibility has been hit
Does Duncan Riley write for them as well?
The simple fact that he managed to let people believe that he “misunderstood” what the application was, what he could / couldn’t do disgusts me.
I mean COME ON.. .. It was all part of his very plan !
(For french readers , I had posted a little something here : http://blog.gon...ait-en-janvier/ )
ouch i made a ton of mistakes … sorry :-s
Was this written by a fourth grader?
The writing level on TechCrunch is abysmal. At least most major media outlets make an attempt to adhere to some sort of writing standard.
I don’t recall ever reading an article written by this guy before, but I’ve got to wonder has anyone else at TechCrunch read his writing before allowing him to post.
Gonzague is everywhere, the real president is Gonzague Dambricourt :p
Is it the story you were talking about in twitter?
Up on drudge.
The people of Facebook can elect a leader if they want, Facebook has no say in that.
Maybe people want leadership that transcends national boundaries? I don’t see the problem. You can aspire to be the president of a country or you can gain broader support of people worldwide, bypassing antiquated communications systems, voting mechanisms, prejudices, language barriers, distance, etc.
Everyone ragging on the guy’s English, remember that Ouriel is French, and he’s the editor of TechCrunch France, which explains both the grammatical errors and why he was the one to publish this story. A proof-read wouldn’t have been a bad idea, but he’s writing in what I assume is his second language, so I’m willing to cut some slack.
I didn’t know styles of coffee makers could fall victim to pranks…
Are you seriously dumb? Of course nobody in France has ever believed of a serious Facebook president! They’re just mentioning the story because FB is one of the biggest thing right now and a French guy got some attention. Yes, the articles are written in a way to give it more credibility but none of them pretends it’s a serious and meaningful title!
PS: Being French, please forgive me for the mistakes. Ouriel is also French, that may explain his, that doesn’t excuse the lack of spell checking though
What’s his position on banning Scoble?
poorly written post!
Bob, wake up. i seriously doubt you live in France if you can say that. Just read the papers and watch tv.
Who said the French press had credibility?
It’s just an amazing bluff from this guy in the french press! Of course he’s the first to understand the non-sense of his title.
It shows the credibility of our press…
A french
That’s some serious diggbait man, way to go!
The need is for journalists to become more literate
I would like to congratulate the 2008 president.
Guess what folks – all news people are this dumb. We make the mistake of thinking they’re smart. Most of them are actor-wannabees who ended up on local tv. We are the one’s who should be fact checking them.
It is the same French press (Agence France Presse) which published on December 20, 2007 a story on the Secession of the Sioux Tribes from the United States, story which has circulated throughout the world and been reprinted in hundreds of newspapers in several languages: the actual facts were that four individual Indians, with no credentials or authority to represent anyone but themselves called a press conference in Washington D. C, on December 19. A french reporter seeking some kind of hot story mistook them for actual representatives of the Lakota (Sioux) nation, and without checking any facts whatsoever, or the veracity of their ludicrous Press Release, transformed a stunt into an international crisis, and the rumor thus started went around the world like fire for several days. I have personally asked Agence France Presse and Le Monde for a retraction of their false story, but their subsequent silence is deafening.
This is more complex than just not fact checking, lots of bloggers don’t do fact checking either but mistakes get lost in the noise. Traditional news organizations rely heavily on wire services to find content they can either repurpose or use as a baseline for their self-generated content. Relying on news services sets a baseline that assumes that the wire service has done the basics of reporting (e.g. fact checking). When that system breaks down, then you will see multiple news outlets make the same mistake over and over again.
Any news story or blog post that purports to be news (as opposed to opinion/analysis) without second or third-party comment is suspect. Assume the facts are correct or presented as unbiased at your own risk.
Sacre bleu!
That guy looks like Pud (Philip Kaplan from AdBrite, FCompany, etc.).
msm fact checking issues aside, btw what would be the fact here? anyways, sounds like a neat social app. never been to fb, uses computer to make money then goes home…
“… so fact-checking becomes a luxury no longer affordable.”… You’ve GOTTA be kidding, AND, they can’t “afford” to google?
…and all people named “Marque” are narrow-minded schmucks.
My gosh, get an editor. This article was nothing short of a butchery of the English language.
So sad that even in todays world people still fall for this crap.
Good lord you have all that referencing power at your disposal and the media still churns out junk
this is why I don;t buy newspapers
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http://www.xenbet.com
Ouriel to bob: “Just read the papers and watch tv.”
If that were true, the world would believe that everyone wanted to vote for Barack Obama and he was a shoo-in for President of the US after the Iowa caucus, or that Mike Huckabee was the greatest thing for the Republican party since sliced bread. Or that Sarkozy was an alcoholic… okay maybe you have a point, or maybe papers and television are the beliefs of the media and not really the people. Maybe new media has a better grasp of what people in the country actually believe.
It’s not just the French press that has this problem…
Isn’t this the same thing that happened in Florida in 2000? A fool pulled off the biggest prank in American history by claiming to have won the electorate? Everyone believed him… all the way up to a 4-3 vote in the Supreme Court.
Umm …. Michael… do you actually edit these posts?
He suggested that the media should use Wikipedia to do fact checking!
that is soooo funny – French are so stupid! At the time the biggest newspaper LeMonde reported about Hatebook.org they reported that the founder is a real man with the name Dr.Evil – they didn’t get the joke that Dr.Evil is just a fake and Hatebook a parody! Ts ts ts
I’ve read a few French articles and I don’t think any journalist was tricked into something the headline suggests. Yes, they probably dont know FB enough to understand that the so called President only reaches people having installed the application, and not 100% of FB users. They don’t seem to think that the guy has any real power in FB as a company.
Ouriel, I find it quite stupid from you to post such a fake news that just serves as a lighter for yet another “omg French are so [insert word here]“. Or, are you planning to post something about Americans being obese, next?
Didn’t know something on TC could surpass Duncan Riley in writing partial and underdocumented items.
Great, next they’ll tell us the winner of u4prez.com won’t really be president of the USA.