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| - Fact Check: After Capitol Hill siege by Trump supporters, Merkel's parody tweet goes viral
In the message attributed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, she says that her "departure from office is going to be very boring", in an apparent reference to the Capitol Hill violence.
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India Today Fact Check
The tweet was posted by a parody account of Merkel which people mistook as real. The German Chancellor does not have an official Twitter account.
Hours after Donald Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol Hill to stop the Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory, a message said to be from German Chancellor Angela Merkel has gone viral on social media.
In the message attributed to Merkel, she says that her “departure from office is going to be very boring”, in an apparent reference to the Capitol Hill violence. Several Facebook and Twitter accounts have posted the message.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the message was actually tweeted by a parody account of Merkel which people mistook as real. The German Chancellor does not have an official Twitter account.
The archived versions of the posts are saved here, here and here.
Origin of the message
As several Facebook users claimed that Merkel had made the tweet, we looked for her official Twitter account and found none. Instead, we came across a Twitter account in her name with the handle “@Queen_Europe”, which had actually posted the viral message on January 7, 2021. This tweet had gathered 65,000 retweets till the filing of this story.
I can assure you that my departure from office is going to be very boring. — Angela Merkel (@Queen_Europe) January 6, 2021
The Twitter bio of this handle mentions that it is a parody account. But the unverified Twitter account has a huge follower base. With more than 2.3 lakh followers and counting, the account is operational since 2011, and according to “TweetBeaver”, has so far posted over 3,000 tweets.
As per German news website “Deutsche Welle”, the account was closed mysteriously in 2012. After some time, it was re-activated with the same handle, i.e. “@Angela_D_Merkel”. It was again closed and then re-opened with a new handle “@Queen_Europe”.
In 2012, in an interview with “Deutsche Welle”, the impersonator with the hidden identity had said, “Essentially, I’m someone who grew up in Brussels, in Euroland, as part of the European generation. I just have a cynical take on all this, and that’s what I wanted to get across with this account.”
The German Chancellor has no official Twitter account so far.
There have been talks about her retirement plan though. As per news reports, Merkel, who has been leading Germany for 15 years, is not supposed to run for office for the fifth time and has decided to step down this year after four terms in office.
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