Twitter hoax: Greek filmmaker Costa-Gavras dead at age 85

France-based Greek filmmaker Costa-Garvas is the talk of the town on social media for all the wrong reasons. A tweet from “a fake account” attributed to Greece’s Culture Minister Myrsini Zorba on Thursday, claimed that Oscar-winning writer-director Costa-Gavras had died at age 85.

The news was quickly picked up by major news networks including The Associated Press, who quickly withdrew the report, stating that it had based its now-retracted report on a statement from the Greek Culture Minister. The fake account was later discovered to be set up by Italian journalist Tommaso Debenedett.

“A journalist called me and told me that I died,” Gavras, 85, told Greece’s ERT TV on Thursday”

As for Zorba, she said the Twitter hoax was a “macabre attack” against her. “The account that used my name was not my account,” she said.

Konstantinos Garvas is best known for his 1969 thriller "Z". The film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Source: The Associated Press.