Lebanese media and activists have published on social media news about the death of Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, based on a tweet from a Twitter account bearing the name of Lebanese Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti, and the account was found to be forged.
And he published an account called Hitti, a group of tweets in French and English, confirming the death of the teacher. It was very popular on social media, and was published by local media and Lebanese media, as was welcomed by Syrian opposition activists on Twitter.
Half an hour after the false news was published, the fake account published a tweet saying, "This account is a fake created by Italian journalist Tommaso di Benedetti", famous for writing misleading news, before the account was later completely deleted from Twitter.
France Presse was unable to confirm whether the Italian journalist was behind this.
He also denied in a statement, "categorically denied," that he had tweeted about any topic, explaining that he had "not finally opened any account on Twitter," noting that he had an account "he had not used for three and a half years."
Later, the official Syrian TV account on the Telegram app quoted the deputy foreign minister and expatriates, without mentioning his name, confirming that "there is no truth to the news that the pages of social media pages circulate" about the death of the teacher, adding that he is "in good health and continues to work normally" .
Benedetti (51) is famous for fabricating fake news and scams, especially on Twitter, and has previously spread rumors of the death of Pope Benedict XVI and Spanish director Pedro Almodovar in 2012.
Until Thursday, he took up his duties at the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, two days after the announcement of the formation of a new Lebanese government of specialists in a country facing economic collapse and an unprecedented popular protest movement for more than three months.