Gorbachev is NOT dead – false news spreads on Twitter again

Many Twitter users have repeated the “news” today about the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet statesman.

The news seemed to gain momentum after a Twitter account (@FReinfeldtGov) created just an hour earlier, claiming to belong to the Prime Minister of Sweden, published the “news” of Gorbachev’s death.

The Twitter account, whose authenticity must be questioned, even claimed that the news had been confirmed by the Russian prime minister.

However, as with the bogus news earlier this month claiming that Margaret Thatcher had died, the story of the death of Gorbachev is – of course – entire nonsense.

Once again, Twitter users are proving that it’s all too easy to spread disinformation quickly around the world by not checking their facts.

The #Gorbachev Foundation confirm that President Gorbachev is alive and well.

— RT UK (@RTUKnews) May 22, 2012

At least some…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.