The Hashtag

Early on January the 3rd, Aussie time, Twitter Lost. Its. Nana. for the umpteenth time with reports Fidel Castro had died.

To some, it seemed like yet another pustule in a rash of fallen leaders that began last year, with recent notable Kim Jong-il joining Muammar Gaddafi and Osama bin Laden. To others, it was a tragedy.

Today's frenzy had its origins in one grainy grey photo of someone who bore an undeniable resemblance to El Comandante, lying with his eyes peacefully closed.

It was originally tweeted on December 29th, it turns out.

I don't have an explanation for the time lapse between the tweet and the twit-storm, such are the vagaries and all that, but what a rampaging hurricane it was.

The sheer volume and speed of the tweets made it impossible to click on any of the very sparse links being posted, and then it just went ahead and crashed Tweetdeck.

In a hurry to get the news and publish it on SBS's site if it were true, I scratched about Cuban press outlets, including Granma (the main rag) and Juventud Rebelde (Rebellious Youth). But they were reporting nothing of the kind, and neither were CNN, Al Jazeera or the BBC.

Still, Internet can be a bit of a bummer in Cuba - Havana blogger Yoani Sanchez was tweeting via phone call at the time, after all. And she was saying that if Castro had died, Cubans would be the last to know.

The closest I came to a direct answer on the whole affair was a retweeted tweet from a Madrid reporter, who said:

"A new call to my friend from @20m @nemosegu to the island and to Miamiand the news is there is no news."

The Miami Herald had a go at tracing the rumour to its source while Peru's 'Correo' daily proclaimed 'Twitter kills Fidel Castro ... again'.

Digging back through the feed, I found another Madrid-based reporter, Victor Serrano (like the ham) who said the original tweet came from another journalist, Santiago Contreras, in the Dominican Republic.

But when I asked Mr Contreras what had made him post the picture, he said he actually published it on his blog days before, and Twitter users had been led to it when they searched the term 'Castro'.

So there you have it - the noise machine at its noisiest. The news was even given the moniker 'rumour of rumours', perhaps in the 'Song of Songs' way.

There was, as always, much humour made.

I'm posting a selection in the hope that Castro really isn't dead.

Partly because - no matter with how much disdain the West likes to treat Cuba, and no matter how badly the regime's treated its dissidents (which one doesn't?) - it still has the world's largest medical aid program for developing nations - the brainchild of Castro and his doctor sidekick, Che.

But also because if Castro were dead, it would be in utterly bad taste to post a list of jokes at his expense. So I guess this list is a way of saying Twitter, I luvs ya, but I don't believe a word you say.

Fidel Castro dead? You're Havana laugh ... posted Damien O'Connor in English  

Rumour has it that Fidel Castro is dead. Unconfirmed. Also unconfirmed is that his little known fat son Fidel Un will take over," tweeted Simon Kennedy.

And then this one: "Fidel Castro is immortal. When the world ends, only him and the cockroaches will survive. And Cher. Obviously," in Spanish.

Carlitos Satan pulled out the swear words:

"You'd have to be a son of a b**ch to start a rumour that Fidel Castro had died and f*** up Telecinco's broadcast of Pretty Woman."

Alfredo Arense quoted 'Twitter' and created a morbid version of a Cretan paradox, saying:

"Read on Twitter: Until Fidel Castro himself says he's died, I won't believe it. And if he says it himself - neither.”

Anyway - that'll do for now.The frenzy continues under the hashtag #castro if you want to join in.

Also, DirigentesDigital is taking the whole story quite seriously, so if you speak Spanish and want to know more, check it out, and check back here when the real news breaks for video of me eating my hat.

*****

Additions:

Sorry - totally forgot to mention two key points - that photo's been around for years, and it was uploaded to the Dominican blog on El Dia de los Inocentes - the Latin American version of April Fool's, which falls in late December.