The chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, was used in a fake Twitter account that posted a false story Monday claiming Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had passed away

Credit: © L’Osservatore Romano / Pope Benedict XVI in Vatican City on August 28, 2010.

The chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, was used in a fake Twitter account that posted a false story Monday claiming Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had passed away.

Later, the account with the username @BischofBatzing was deleted.

The same account claimed, before it vanished, that the erroneous story of the still-living 95-year-old retired pope’s death was the product of notorious Italian Twitter hoaxer Tommasso De Benedetti.

“Twitter works well for deaths,” De Benedetti told The Guardian in 2012. “Social media is the most unverifiable information source in the world but the news media believes it because of its need for speed.”