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| - Misleading: BBC’s new design has nothing to do with a rumored death in the British royal family
On March 18, some users on X claimed that the British public broadcaster BBC had changed its web page layout and logo to black and white, suggesting it was related to a rumored death in a British royal family.
The posts (here, here and here) have gained around 500 likes and 80 shares at the time of writing. Similar claims also spread on Chinese social media platforms including Weibo.
They often implied that the color black was meant to signal someone’s death, most probably either Kate, the Princess of Wales, or King Charles III. Both of them have not been seen much in public since their respective medical treatments in the last few months.
However, the claim is misleading. Annie Lab found that the BBC logo has been in black and white since Oct. 20, 2021, while the header designs of its homepage and news page were changed on March 9, days before the rumor surfaced online.
Social media platforms are now littered with an endless stream of conspiracy theories surrounding their absence from public events, although Princess Kate is seen in a new video with Prince William one week after the photo editing scandal involving her made headlines globally.
In late February, Buckingham Palace announced the death of Thomas Kingston, a financier and Lady Gabriella Kingston’s husband, but as far as Annie Lab can tell, none of the social media posts referred to his death as related to the rumor.
We looked at the records of the BBC home page archived by Wayback Machine, which show the broadcaster had changed the banner at the top between March 8 and March 9.
Archived versions of the BBC News page on March 8 (here) and on March 9 (here) also show similar changes were made by removing its red banner.
However, the word NEWS remains to be in red.
On March 15, the BBC announced a makeover of its website, which included the homepage and the news section.
We also checked if the BBC had altered its website design or color when there was a death in the British royal family and found no such practice.
For instance, when Queen Elizabeth II passed on Sept. 8, 2022, there were no visible changes in the website design or color.
The media outlet also announced an update for the BBC News app on March 8, which would be “available soon.”
The social media misinformation comes amid talks surrounding the health conditions of the British royal family members. The discussions include the health of Kate, the Princess of Wales, who has had minimal public appearances since last Christmas and her subsequent abdominal surgery, and the health of King Charles, who was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in February.
Guardian reported that Russian media had falsely spread the news about “the death” of King Charles on March 18, while the British Embassy in Russia and Ukraine issued a clarification denying the rumor on X.
Another related false claim about a supposed half-mast at Buckingham Palace has been debunked by some fact-checkers, including the Lead Stories.
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