A French scientist suddenly became the center of attention and a target of online backlash after trolling Twitter users.
On July 31, Étienne Klein posted a photo of a large red round object on his personal Twitter, claiming it was an image of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. He wrote, “Unprecedented detail … A new world opens every day.”
In reality, the photo showed a slice of sausage against a black background.
The post quickly gained thousands of likes on Twitter. Most people praised the advanced telescope’s achievement until Klein admitted his “crime.” The photo was actually a slice of chorizo, a famous smoked sausage from Europe.
In follow-up tweets, Klein called the astronomy photo taken from his kitchen “a form of entertainment” and noted that most Twitter users who reacted were victims of cognitive bias.
Viewers jumped to conclusions when they saw keywords like “JWST” (James Webb Space Telescope) and “Proxima Centauri,” associating the round, large, red object with a star.
The event gained so much attention that Klein landed an interview with the newspaper Le Point. When asked, he explained the photo was just a harmless joke: “This is the first time I’ve played a prank while representing the scientific research department of [my workplace].”
He added, “[The post] also shows the truth that on social media like this, fake news often succeeds more than the truth. I also think if I hadn’t mentioned the photo was taken by the James Webb telescope, it wouldn’t have been so successful.”
As of now, Klein’s post has nearly 19,600 likes.
