Statement claiming King Charles III has died is a hoax
The statement has been created to appear to look like an official communication from the palace
CLAIM
A screenshot of an alleged statement by Buckingham Palace, claiming to announce the death of British Monarch King Charles III, trended on social platforms on Monday. The statement is a hoax and originated primarily from Russian groups on Telegram.
BACKGROUND
A screenshot of an alleged statement by Buckingham Palace, claiming to announce the death of British Monarch King Charles III, trended on social platforms on Monday.
The alleged statement, dated March 18, 2024 and bearing the emblem of Buckingham Palace, read: “The King passed away unexpectedly yesterday afternoon”.
The news was picked up by several news media organisations, including Russian media outlet SOTA, which published a picture of the King along with the caption: “King Charles III of Great Britain has died, according to Buckingham Palace.”
Other examples of the announcement on Russian Telegram channels can be seen here and here.
METHOD
When you examine the statement alleging the King’s passing and compare it to a previous official statement by the palace, you notice key differences.
Blurring around the emblem and text indicates it is a low-quality/resolution image.
Blueing around the text also indicates a low-resolution screenshot.
The formatting of the text in the screenshot also differs from that of previous official statements from the palace.
From this analysis, we can conclude that the statement has been recreated to look like an official statement by Buckingham Palace.
A post on the Twitter account of the British Embassy in Kyiv on Monday read: “We would like to inform you that the news about the death of King Charles III is fake.”
SOTA later withdrew their announcement, sharing on Telegram, saying: “A screenshot of a message about the death of Charles Ill, allegedly published by Buckingham Palace, turned out to be fake. Apologize.”
From this analysis, we can conclude that the statement has been recreated to look like an official statement by Buckingham Palace.
Conspiracy theories
In the aftermath of the statement on Monday, several videos and images emerged showing the flag at Buckingham Palace at half-mast. For example:
These videos and images, while real, are old and date back to the death of Queen Elizabeth on September 8, 2022.
One post from Sunday, viewed 1.5 million times, read: “BBC has reportedly been notified to watch out for an ‘extremely important’ royal announcement.
“According to reports, BBC Events production unit has been notified to keep an eye out for a ‘major announcement’ from the royal family in the wake of a current health crisis.”
Another known conspiracy theory account claimed that the BBC had changed its profile picture to black, though its profile picture has, in fact, been that colour for at least a month.
RATING
The statement has been created to appear to look like an official communication from the palace, but no such communication has been issued to the public.
SOURCES
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: here [Accessed 18 Mar. 2024].
Telegram.org. (2024). Telegram Web. [online] Available at: https://web.telegram.org/k/#@news_forfree [Accessed 18 Mar. 2024].
Telegram.org. (2024). Telegram Web. [online] Available at: https://t.me/sotaproject/77451 [Accessed 18 Mar. 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: here [Accessed 18 Mar. 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: here [Accessed 18 Mar. 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: here [Accessed 18 Mar. 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: here [Accessed 18 Mar. 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: here [Accessed 18 Mar. 2024].