If something seems too crazy to be true, it probably is.
On Friday, Conservative MP James Conway tweeted this message of support for his party. Can you spot what’s wrong with it?
Yup, he’s calling for “Strong and stable leaderSHIT”, instead of leadership. Understandably, this hilarious cock-up has gone viral, with message having been retweeted nearly three and a half thousand times.
Only, it’s not real. Sorry to break it to you. There is no MP called James Conway, and the constituency listed in his bio – Earlingford Abbey – does not exist.
The account was only created in April 2017, and has only tweeted 18 times, which is a clear sign of a hoax. The other 17 tweets are pretty well crafted to trick you though, bashing Dianne Abbott, praising the Snooper’s Charter, and complaining about service in Tesco.
Using Google image search, we found that the headshot of the fake MP appears to be the Board of Directors page on the website of New Day, a consumer finance provider.
It also seems it’s not the first time ‘James Conway’ has caused trouble. City AM reported that an old account with the same name similarly tricked people when it tweeted about the Panama Papers leak in 2016.
Remember, if something on social media looks too wild to be true, it most like is. If it doesn’t have a blue tick, if it is a newly-created account, or if it hasn’t posted much else, those are all signs it might not be all it seems.
