WASHINGTON — A bogus Twitter account using the name of Georg Bätzing, the head of the German Bishops’ Conference, tweeted a false report Mondayevening that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had died.
The account, using the handle @BischofBatzing, was later removed. Before disappearing, the same account posted that the false report on the passing of the still-living 95-year-old retired pope was the work of infamous Italian Twitter hoaxer Tommasso De Benedetti.
"Twitter works well for deaths," De Benedetti told The Guardian in 2012. "Social media is the most unverifiable information source in the world but the news media believes it because of its need for speed."