BBCWith it being 2016, the year of deaths and fake news, what could be more apt than a fake BBC story saying the Queen had died, sending Twitter into a frenzy.
This comes after reports that the Queen had been suffering from a heavy cold and was unable to attend Christmas Day mass and a visit to Sandringham Palace this festive season.
Just in case we needed more confirmation that our Regina is still going strong, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said that both the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were alive and ‘continue to recover from their heavy colds’.
Looks like a fake BBC account reporting that the queen is dead pic.twitter.com/kVKYucUv88
— Anthony Cheung (@AWMCheung) December 29, 2016
Twitter went into a meltdown after a spoof BBC twitter account announced her death on Thursday evening, Huffington Post reports.
As many internet users immediately took the ‘BBC’ announcement as gospel, serious embarrassment dawned as the truth came to light.
is BBC news the best channel to find out the true answer to #mediablackout ? If the queen died it'd be on there first surely?
— Connie (@C_nnie_) December 30, 2016
By this morning #MediaBlackout was the top trend on Twitter with people waiting for the outlets to report what had happened.
It is so 2016 that we all immediately believed that The Queen was dead because IT'S 2016.
— kat calvin (@KatCalvinLA) December 29, 2016
This year has brought so many celebrity deaths that the fake announcement was almost expected by many.
Oh god ?#mediablackout what's this all about ? #notanother #gonetoosoon annoucement at 8 am @BBCBreaking
— Jill Kenton (@JillKenton) December 30, 2016
I just fell for a fake BBC account announcing the death of Queen Elizabeth II because it seemed obvious with this year.
— Christopher Campbell (@thefilmcynic) December 29, 2016
This guy even ran to Buckingham Palace at half six in the morning to check she was alright:
Just did a jet lagged jog to the palace. It's totally quiet, nothing is going on. Silly twitter. #LongLiveTheQueen! #mediablackout pic.twitter.com/L1uqGvwO9X
— Charlie Archer (@1CharlieArcher) December 30, 2016
BBC reporter, Rory Cellan-Jones came to everyone’s rescue and reported the truth this morning, describing the frenzy as ‘bonkers’.
https://twitter.com/4DC5/status/814742021265092608
The Buckingham Palace spokesman said:
The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh continue to recover from their heavy colds.
As expected, the conspiracists are fanning the flames, saying the media are now covering up her death until the new year.
We’re glad to hear she is alive and well and hope she returns to good health soon.
