An image of a tongue-in-cheek tweet allegedly from the FBI about Prince Andrew is not real – and was intended as satire. However, many social media users shared the picture and believed it to be authentic.
Examples of the image, designed to look like a screenshot, can be seen here, here, here and here. At the top is a genuine tweet from a Sky News interview with the Duke of York following the death of his father, Prince Philip (here). Below, in the tweet’s “replies”, it appears to be a comment from a verified FBI account, which reads, “Ooh, is he doing interviews now?” It refers to the Duke allegedly refusing to take part in an interview with the FBI about alleged sex trafficking conducted by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein (here).
“The FBI wins Twitter today,” one comment next to the screenshot said. Another added: ‘Cheeky from the FBI. ‘
However, the FBI did not make this remark; the image was created by another user on Twitter who was transparent about his joke. “Of course, the FBI would never tweet such an answer, so I thought I’d rather mock it for them,” he said in a report with the fake snapshot (here).
VERDICT
Satire. The person who originally created the image was transparent about his tongue-in-cheek intent; however, it is believed to be genuine by many social media users who viewed the image out of context.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.