In response to the recent uproar around Brazil’s sluggish action on an elevated number of fires in the country’s stretch of the Amazon, French President Emmanuel Macron undermined his own argument by using an old photograph and inaccurate information about the Amazon forest fires in a tweet calling for action. The tweet drew a ferocious response, predominantly from Brazilians who expressed their dissatisfaction on Twitter.

The fires in the Amazon rainforest have yielded a muddy information environment online, of which Macron’s tweet was one of the more widely covered. The resulting online conversation, whether intentional or not, served to draw attention to political parlor games and one-upmanship instead of the issue at hand. The backlash to Macron’s tweet, for example, diverted attention away from the fires ravaging the Amazon toward Macron himself.

The DFRLab identified several signs that this response might have been the result of a coordinated attempt by Bolsonaro supporters.

This was one of the first, but not the sole, instance in which old photos of burning forests were circulated as if they were current images of the Amazon. Reports have surfaced of various celebrities trying to raise awareness about the Amazon fires using old photos of previous fires, some of which occurred in other countries.

Of all of these blunders, Macron’s tweet seemed to have received the most negative attention from Twitter users as the large portion of the comments under the post were negative. In addition to the criticism it triggered, Macron’s tweet also sparked a personal feud with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who accused Macron of having a “colonialist mindset in the 21st century” in suggesting the Amazon should be internationalized, perceived by Brazil as an act of imperialistic intervention. The feud escalated further, leading Bolsonaro to announce that he would refuse assistance from the G7 countries to fight the forest fires, though he would later retract that pledge.

Macron’s tweet

The original tweet from Emmanuel Macron attempted to raise awareness of the Amazon fires, posted on August 22, 2019. (Source: @EmmanuelMacron/archive)

The DFRLab used TinEye reverse image search engine to check when the image was originally uploaded. TinEye found three different stock image websites featuring the image, with the earliest upload from August 2013.