UK network delivers catastrophic fake news
The BBC tweeted a gross misrepresentation of President’s Trump’s words given during his UN speech by reporting Trump said “war will follow” rather than his actual words, “more will follow.”
The UK network’s world news Twitter account (@BBCWorld) sent the false message on Tuesday to its 24 million followers.
“Donald Trump tells UN General Assembly ‘war will follow’ after his decision to re-impose sanctions on Iran, who he accuses of ‘slaughter in Syria and Yemen.’” reads the now deleted BBC tweet.
After another account acknowledged the gravity of what was reported, the BBC account issued a correction tweet that specified Trump’s real words were “more will follow” as well as adding the hashtag “#ourbad.”
The tweet was reportedly public for 20 hours before its deletion; a screenshot can be seen below.
Since then, the account did further damage control with an “#honestmistake” hashtag.
It should be noted that earlier this week Twitter asked actor James Woods to delete a satirical meme that the social media giant feared had the “potential to be misleading in a way that could impact an election.”
