when a hoax on Twitter announced the coronation of Annie Ernaux in 2021

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Back to the future. The 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded Thursday, October 6 to French novelist Annie Ernaux, announced the Swedish Academy. The 82-year-old writer is rewarded for “the courage and clinical acuity with which she discovers the roots, the distances and the collective constraints of personal memory“, explained the Nobel jury.

>> Nobel Prize in Literature: with this prize, Annie Ernaux feels a “responsibility” to testify for “justice”

She thus becomes the 17th woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the 16th French winner since the founding of the famous awards in 1901. Joined by Swedish public television, she declared her “very great honor” but also “a great responsibility“given to him to continue witnessing”of a form of fairness, of justice, in relation to the world“.

Unusual detail: the Nobel committee indicated that it had not been able to contact the 82-year-old writer before the official announcement, as tradition dictates, and announced to her the prestigious news as well as a check for the sum of 10 million
Swedish crowns (about 920,000 euros). But it is also an astonishing snub. In 2021, almost a year to the day before her coronation, Annie Ernaux tweeted her Nobel Prize in Literature before anyone else. Except that the pot-aux-roses was quickly revealed: no, the writer Annie Ernaux did not make a mistake by taking the title instead of the Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah.

We are then Thursday, October 7, 2021, the rumor is buzzing: the French is presented as one of the favorites. And a few minutes before the official announcement of the prize by the very official Nobel committee in Stockholm, a Twitter account shakes up habits and customs: a certain Annie Ernaux announces, via her personal profile on the social network, her own coronation at the end of the morning. , thanking all those who had supported it.

First in English : “Nobel Prize in Literature 2021! Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!”, could we read. Then another, in French: “LThe Swedish Academy now informs me that I have won the Nobel Prize for Literature. An indescribable joy. A huge joy. Thanks.“messages relayed hundreds of times, in particular by public figures.

Except that it was a hoax: a fake Twitter account created by an Italian customary for the fact, Tommaso Debenedetti, who, in general, signs his hoaxes in the minutes or hours that follow by writing “This Twitter account is a fake created by journalist Tommaso Debenedetti“. Quickly, the few personalities who had retweeted the fake Annie Ernaux deleted their message. Moreover, it was not the first time that the now truly Nobel-winning Annie Ernaux had had her digital identity stolen: in August 2021, already, she had been forced to explain not having an account on Twitter.

The Italian forger calls himself a journalist, but he is in reality a teacher; he says that by creating these fake tweets, he denounces the functioning of the media, their excessive speed, the lack of verification.

>> franceinfo junior. Nobel Prize: what you might not know

Moreover, other personalities have also been victims of digital identity theft and fake tweets. These impostures have been going on for ten years and each time users are fooled. The Italian’s jokes are often in dubious taste because he announces false deaths. In July 2021, he announced the death of Annie Ernaux on a fake account presented as that of Gallimard editions, as well as the death of Michel Houellebecq from a fake Flammarion account. Two “infox” which did not work, fortunately.

On the other hand in 2018, Tommaso Debennedetti had created a false account of a Greek Minister of Culture to announce the death of the Franco-Greek director Costa-Gavras, who had been forced to quickly deny his own death. Meanwhile, media as well known as the New York Times had announced the false news before having to rectify…


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