Vincent Flibustier’s photo went viral within minutes and already has almost 4 lakh likes.
New Delhi:
“What is CrowdStrike? Why does my Windows computer show the Blue Screen of Death? Who is responsible for the biggest IT failure ever?”
These are questions that have dominated conversations around the world after a Microsoft bug put Windows computers on their heels. Although it is now known that an update to an antivirus program ‘Falcon Sensor’ from CrowdStrike was responsible for the massive global outage, people are still wondering how such a defective update could be released and who was behind it.
Enter Vincent Flibustier, an X-user parading as a Crowdstrike employee. Vincent broke the internet with an altered, AI-generated photo of him outside the CrowdStrike office, along with the caption: “First day at Crowdstrike, pushed a little update and took the afternoon off.”
First day at Crowdstrike, pushed a little update and took the afternoon off ✌️ pic.twitter.com/bOs4qAKwu0
— Vincent Flibustier 👽 (@vinceflibustier) July 19, 2024
The photo went viral within minutes and already has almost 4 lakh likes and has been shared by over 36,000 users.
Two hours later, Flibustier posted another update: the company had fired him. He also shared a short video in which he takes ‘responsibility’ for causing the global outage.
Vincent Flibustier also changed his X (former Twitter) biography to accompany the parody. His bio stated: “Former Crowdstrike employee, fired for an unfair reason, changed only one line of code to optimize. Looking for a job as a Sysadmin.”
While he tried to make a joke about it, thousands online bought his satire and thought he was the one responsible for the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on their system. Airlines, banks, TV networks and several other industries tried to tackle the problem, and people on social media went into overdrive after finding the ‘culprit’.
While several users praised him for saving them from having to work on Fridays, some posted insulting messages about him.
The truth: Vincent is a satirical writer who runs Nordpresse, a Belgian parody news site. He appeared on French TV, where he noted: “People are attracted to stories that confirm their prejudices.”
He further explained why people on the internet immediately picked up on his joke, saying: “No perpetrator has been named yet, I’m bringing it on a silver platter, people would like to have a perpetrator. The perpetrator seems completely stupid, he is proud of his stupidity, he takes his afternoon off on the first day of work. This ends up in a huge buzz where people absolutely need new information, and fake is new by nature, you don’t read it anywhere else.
He also said the message was shared by those who knew it was a joke, but the amplification took it into a zone where people took every word of the tweet literally.
Millions of users around the world are still facing issues, with both Microsoft and CrowdStrike trying to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
The latest version of the Falcon Sensor software aimed to make CrowdStrike customers’ systems more secure from hacking by updating the threats it defends against. However, faulty code in the update files resulted in one of the most widespread technical glitches in recent years for companies using Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
The issues quickly came to light after the update rolled out on Friday, with users posting photos on social media of computers showing blue screens with error messages. These are known in the industry as ‘blue screens of death’.