Watch out for this hijacked sign from a protester in the United States

• Thomas Wiesel, a Swiss humorist, had fun diverting photos of American protesters protesting the containment measures on Saturday.
• The joke went out of its circle and one of the montages ended up being taken seriously in the United States.
• Thomas Wiesel explains to 20 Minutes that he “did not expect” that this montage would go viral.

It all started with a joke. On Saturday, Swiss comedian Thomas Wiesel published hijackings of panels of American demonstrators on his Facebook account. The actor amuses himself by diverting the messages of the demonstrators, who demand the end of the containment measures. We can now read: “I had some cardboard left”, “We want Dafalgan [we want Dafalgan]”, “UV saves lives [UV saves lives]”.

The joke could have stopped there, if one of the diversions had not been repeated on other accounts, before being taken in the first degree by many Internet users.

The image shows a woman holding up a sign, on which the humorist wrote "Barack 6, Hussein 7, Obama 5, Covid = 19. Open your eyes". The false sum is one of the first signs that this is a diversion. A reverse image search returns to the original photo: the demonstrator is holding a sign that reads: "Give me freedom or give me death." She participated in a demonstration organized on April 17 in California, against the containment rules put in place by this state.

She might get her wish #HuntingtonBeach pic.twitter.com/Xe4igTAd2g

The diverted image is first taken up on French-speaking Facebook pages with satirical aims, before being published on American forums, which take it seriously. Kim Gordon, the bass player of the Sonic Youth group, even posts it to his 140,000 Twitter subscribers, surprised at the miscalculation written on the sign.

Umm actually it's 18 pic.twitter.com/ZfMrgQiMlk

Thomas Wiesel explains to 20 Minutes that he did not "expect" that this montage would go viral: "I have already transplanted my images without attributing them to myself, but this is the first time that there has been this scenario where people end up no longer understanding that it is a montage ”. A situation that surprises him all the more "that finding the source of the editing is quite easy," he adds. It only takes a few seconds, but apparently many don't even have that time. "

With this montage, the comic heard laughing "dodgy theories that always want to tie everything together and look for hidden symbols". "When I saw these demonstrations, I told myself that it lent itself well to the parody," he adds, adding that the goal was to be "funny" and not "to mislead". He had already published diversions in the past and intends to continue. "I'm not going to stop trying to make people laugh," he said.

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• Fake Off
• Humor
• United States
• Demonstration
• Covid 19
• Coronavirus
• By the Web