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Papal Visit Off – the Spoof that went Viral

The Times reports the sad breaking news for Malta’s faithful. The Papal visit has been called off.

An unexpected article on this edition of the Times. Was it the volcanic ash? Was it the Luqa monument? There’s something fishy… the Pope’s not coming and all we are left with are tarmacked roads and a general clean up. Hmmm not a bad bargain for April.

More to follow.

***
And the spoof goes on…

The Times of Malta denial

(posted at 1219CET – 2 hours after original J’accuse posting)

timesofmalta.com denies spoof story
timesofmalta.com is denying a story circulating on Facebook mimicking this website and claiming that the Papal visit has been cancelled.

timesofmalta.com never published such a story.

Readers can clarify that the site they are reading is timesofmalta.com by reading the location bar of their browser

The timesofmalta.com denial refers to Facebook because the story  also circulated from the J’accuse Facebook page. It’s not a mimic, it’s a clone – and yes, TOM is right – one of the first things you should check on a webpage is the address bar – especially when you are not sure if it may be true.

J’accuse, with a little help of tech savvy friends, has proven its point – you CAN make an impact if you want to. Pink gossip or spoof will sell and travel fast. There IS a reason why the Luqa phallus story was the second most read news item on bbc.com for a whole day.

J’accuse would like to thank Messers X & X for their invaluable contribution – they came up with a private idea and allowed us to go viral with it because we noticed it would be ideal to prove the point.

P.S. The link is back up!

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27 replies on “Papal Visit Off – the Spoof that went Viral”

Ehh din cajta goffa eh! il-link li tajt m’hix timesofmalta.com u l-iscreenshot imbabsa taparsi gejja mit-times. ehh Jacques ma kontx nistenniha minnghandek din!

Haha. Ghandi kurzita nkun naf x’ghandek f’mohhok. Ejja ghax xbajt naghmel refresh jien ;-)

@ Malcolm do I really need to spell it out? Satyre, fishy, April it’s all there.

Now for the detractors of j’accuse theories. You want impact? You want effect? You want attention? It’s easy. Cause scandal, come up with a curious story or gossip. Within two hours the times were officially denying the spoof. Is this the attention that you want David Friggieri? A che pro?

I do believe Jacques has made his point :) You sure got people’s attention that’s for sure..

@ Jacques – Ghandek mitt ragun. Qajjimt kjass b’din l-istorja li mhix vera, jew daqstant serja. Lezzjoni ghal DF u kull min isegwi il-blogosfera

Hallik minn lezzjoni lil DF. Jekk kont imqar nicca ta’ provokazzjoni ckejkna ghall-‘event’ li holoq Jacques, kuntentissimu! Way to go j’accuse. I’ll be telling you more about the background to my ‘provocation’ if you care to hear it…bilateral communication this time. In the meantime, chapeau.

PS: amazing how ideas take unexpected twists and turns once you light the flame and sharp operators join the dots…

Ok Jacques. Kudos e basta jekk tippreferi li naghlqu d-diskussjoni hawn. Prosit tal-programm.

Tutto il calcio giuventus per giuventus: Dopo “l’intervento da caterpillar” di Chiellini…il gol di Michael Douglas Maicon…peccato

they would have blamed you jacques for jinxing the visit, if pope’s flight from rome had been cancelled too

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