How a hoax story about betting on Le Pen fooled the internet

You may have seen screenshots of tweets from a disappointed Brexiter who was trying to convince Ladbrokes his 13-year-old son put a £500 bet on Marine Le Pen winning the French election.

Tweeting under @Wollygogg, a Colin Johnson of Great Yarmouth was desperately trying to claw back the money from the bookmaker. Except the internet found a deleted tweet that said he had made the bet.

The story had all the schadenfreude the internet needed – the only problem is that it was a hoax. There was no bet.

But there is a Colin Johnson of Great Yarmouth, whose Facebook pictures of him and one of his sons were published on Mail Online alongside quotes about the story. So how did a fake account end up being linked to a real person?

The owner of the account, who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity, confirmed the hoax. “There is no bet. I am not Colin,” he said via a direct message on Twitter.

With a background in PR, the man said he had “duped a lot of reporters in the past” and knew how to make a hoax story such as this spread.

He created the account last month and attempted to make it look as legitimate as possible, retweeting leading Brexiters and tweeting in support of Le Pen.

“I wanted to try to create a story: obnoxious Brexiteer backs Le Pen, taunts liberals while endearing himself to [Andy] Wigmore, [David] Vance, [Arron] Banks etc (I hoped to get public support from them), loses bet and then throws a fit,” he said.

The account bears the name and location of an individual from Great Yarmouth whose YouTube videos of him confronting bailiffs and police have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube.

The man behind the account said: “My intention was never to link it to the real CJ. I put the name out there wondering if people would join the dots.” Twitter users began making the connection, but @Wollygogg never answered tweets asking about the real Colin Johnson’s channel.

From the start, he knew the fake account was getting attention. All it needed was momentum.

“I hoped to rope in Jeremy Vine to give it legs, but somehow it started to take off on its own anyway,” he said.

“All of a sudden it started popping up on accounts I follow on my genuine Twitter. People were posting it on Facebook too. Last night, I was in a bar in Hoxton and I could hear two women laughing about it.”

Websites then began to cover the story. Some reached out and interviewed “Colin”, who kept up the pretence. “I was surprised the Mail went for it,” he said. “Doing the telephone interview was difficult.” When journalists asked for proof of the bet, he provided a photoshopped Ladbrokes receipt.

The Guardian has attempted to contact the real Colin Johnson for comment. On Tuesday, he uploaded a video to YouTube saying he had received messages about the tweets.

“I’ve been getting harassed something chronic by a little group of trolls, saying I’ve been betting or my son’s been betting,” he said.

“They’ve been saying I’ve been betting on some fascist group that ain’t even in this country. I don’t even know who – Le Pen or some bollocks like that. I had to ask someone that I know, because you know I don’t keep up with politics.

“Anyone who knows me, I’m not fascist, I’m not into none of that bollocks whatsoever.”

For the fake Colin, it is an example of how the politically polarised world of Twitter can make hoaxing easy. “Both sides are creating fake or misleading content to try to smear their opponents,” he said.

“I have a feeling that if I tweeted right now saying ‘this is a hoax’, people would respond with something like ‘Yeah right, you are just trying to save face, Colin.’”