Greta Thunberg after meeting Angela Merkel in Berlin in August 2020 – Markus Schreiber / AP / SIPA
- Over the past few days, several Twitter posts have claimed that Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg will have earned nearly € 46 million in 2021.
- The claim actually comes from a parody site called “Mediamass”. The latter offers “a criticism of the media by caricature” while blithely mocking the codes of the press people.
- The income generated by Greta Thunberg is, via her foundation, donated to “promote ecological, climatic and social sustainability, as well as mental health”.
Ecological activism, a vein that pays off? According to several viral publications on social networks, Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish activist at the origin of the international movement “Friday for Future”, would generate juicy income from her climate activism.
“Greta Thunberg, 18, would dominate the ranking of the best paid activists of 2021 with revenues estimated at nearly 46 million euros”, writes a user on Twitter, without citing any source. What to react other users, who denounce a news “to stack” and accuse the young woman of being a dark swindle.
FAKE OFF
The user we quote above is not the only one who shared this information on Twitter. Other publications have used the same verbatim, this time referring to a article from the French site Mediamass. In a publication last updated on May 17, the latter presents Greta Thunberg “as the highest paid in the world in 2021”, and explains that she would have raised 46 million euros between the months “of April 2020 and April 2021 ”, according to a ranking established by the magazine People With Money.
Mediamass is a caricature
Except that Mediamass is a parody site, and that People with money never existed. Written in red letters within the article, a “fix” indicates that “this rumor appears to be false.” A mention that appears on almost all Mediamass publications. By clicking on the link “find out more”, the site returns to a tab in which it presents its editorial line and explains that it is a “criticism of the media by caricature”.
“The principle is to select classic and recurring articles, representative of the celebrity press, and to offer them for the thousands of personalities present in our database,” indicates Mediamass. The realistic aspect of the articles – since they were actually published for a celebrity – makes the whole all the more ridiculous. “
“Booba: The highest paid French rapper of 2021”, “Eric Zemmour: the highest paid French journalist of 2021” … Many public figures appear on the parody site. In 2014, Le Figaro economy
had been fooled by Mediamass, who had spotted a mention in his fictional magazine People with money in an article devoted to the fortune of Pharell Williams.
Regarding Greta Thunberg, this is not the first time that rumors have spread about the income of the young activist. When announcing the creation of its foundation, in January 2020, it ensured that the profits generated by its activities (copyrights, donations, prices, etc.) were managed in “full transparency” via this structure and used for “Promote ecological, climatic and social sustainability, as well as mental health. “
For example, the Greta Thunberg Foundation donated some 100,000 euros a few weeks ago in favor of a better distribution of vaccines against Covid-19,
Reuters reported.