A bogus message circulating over social network ‘X’ suggests Portugal’s prime minister, Luís Montenegro, is ready to ‘make a deal’ with U.S. president Donald J. Trump over the sovereignty of the Azores.
The language is cringe-making – and appears to have hoodwinked numerous people into believing it is gospel truth (which it isn’t).
Today, the prime minister has stressed he has been a target of “a widely disseminated act of disinformation”, against which he will be filing a complaint.
“Apparently originating from the user ‘Volksvargas’, a false post from the President of the United States of America with an image of a message attributed to the Prime Minister of Portugal was disseminated on the social network X,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s office explains.
Minister for the Presidency António Leitão Amarao has added that the government feels the post has affected the prime minister’s ‘good name’ and the ‘international position of the country’.
“We take this opportunity to highlight the importance of combating misinformation and to alert the Portuguese people to the relevance of verifying the credibility of information sources, particularly on social media”, added the government statement.
The message was still visible this afternoon – and a quick check verifies that it does not come from the official Donald Trump account, nor any of the others that can be found on ‘X’. It appears to have been a ‘clever mock-up’, very possibly the work of Volksvargas – whose handle is “Neoliberalism is all fun until you run out of other people’s dignity”.
The issue of the Azores – used by the Americans for an airbase for decades – has become ‘topical’ nonetheless in the hurly burly of newsbites over the U.S. interest in controlling Greenland.
UPDATE: ‘Volksvargas’ has hit back at the PM’s inability to understand satire (sic).
In a subsequent post, ‘Volksvargas’ explains that his account is all about satire and that the text he published “left no margin for doubt” that the whole thing was a spoof.
Clearly it didn’t – but ‘Volksvargas’ continues nonetheless, saying it is “lamentable” that the government doesn’t concern itself with “disinformation propaganda by CHEGA”, but instead seeks to “intimidate a satirical page to the point of wanting to sue its author”.
Sources: Lusa/ X
