Fake Mel Gibson tweet calling for Soros to face trial

Account impersonating Mel Gibson calls for Soros's arrest

A message circulating under the signature of a profile presented as Mel Gibson calls for George Soros to be added to a most-wanted list and brought before a court for alleged "crimes against the European nations." The text claims that the investor has spent decades buying off politicians, media outlets, newspapers, judges and prosecutors with a single goal: bringing one million immigrants a year into Europe. The obvious question is whether the actor has anything to do with it. The answer given in the replies is no: it is, they say, an account impersonating the filmmaker.

Is the account calling for Soros's arrest genuine?

The no is emphatic. "That is not a Mel Gibson account, just someone impersonating him", sums up one of the replies. The confusion is no accident: the profile displays the verification badge, and some point out that this badge only confirms that the account claims to belong to someone, not that it actually does. Hence the warning that impersonation is a crime and that the actor, with the lawyers he can afford, would have grounds to take action. No such action has been recorded.

What the message claims and what evidence it offers

The content is a sweeping accusation: decades of buying political, journalistic and judicial influence, with a round figure —one million people a year— as the consequence. There is not a single court ruling, document or source to back up the charge. That is the message's first problem: it calls for an international arrest based on an unproven claim. The second problem is the target, an investor known for funding political and civil projects across half the world, which turns any debate about his influence into a minefield where facts and suspicion blend all too easily.

From Soros to the usual conspiracy ladder

From there, the replies climb the rungs. One line of thought holds that Soros "is nobody", that he is a pawn and that what lies behind him is as old as time; another jumps straight to supposed families and secret societies pulling the strings of the planet. It is the classic pattern: the more abstract the enemy, the harder to refute. The religious framing also surfaces, with evil as the engine of history, moving the matter from the legal to the metaphysical realm. There is nothing to prove there. And that is why it never ends.

The leap into Spanish politics

On the political front, one of the replies claims, without offering any evidence, that the Government of Spain answers to the investor's interests. Another mirrors the gesture in the opposite direction, naming the Spanish Prime Minister directly in a cross-demand for arrests. It is the same old mechanism: a serious accusation thrown into the air, sustained only by repetition. Not one of those charges has been proven in court.

From alleged crime to the box office

And then there is the movies. Among the replies, some celebrate the actor's alleged intervention and announce they will go see his next film —atheism included—, while others point out that Gibson finances his own projects. A message about alleged crimes against the European nations ends up, like almost everything on the internet, talking about cinema seats. The investigating judge, for now, has yet to appear.