The British Royal Family has often been the centre of tabloid drama, untrue rumours, and elaborate conspiracy theories. These conspiracy theories in particular have resurfaced, along with a flourish of new ones, in the wake of the Queen’s death. And with social media’s ability to spread a message all the way around the world in a matter of seconds, it is no wonder that some conspiracy theories and disinformation surrounding the death of the U.K’s longest reigning monarch, were able to go viral.

As many held their breath throughout the day waiting for updates on the Queen (the BBC had over 1 million viewers on their live updates at one point), others took to Twitter for their news. Here, dozens of accounts were found claiming that Queen Elizabeth II had died earlier than officially announced. With a first glance at the accounts, they looked like reputable news sites from around the world. However, on closer inspection, you see that the accounts are not verified, usually only have a few followers, and probably only recently created the account. Despite analysts like Brian Liston highlighting that these are fake accounts wrongly reporting on the Queen’s death, the fake tweets were amplified and retweeted hundreds of times before being removed by Twitter. According to the Daily Dot, one account posing as the BBC gathered more than 1,000 retweets in just 10 minutes after falsely claiming that the monarch had died. This account has since been suspended by Twitter, but it is difficult to undo the damage already done.

Using the European Observatory of Online Hate analysis tool, we were able to monitor conversations closely, highlight conspiracy theories, and track toxic narratives. The timeline of toxicity above shows the peak in toxic narratives surrounding conversations on social media that mention the Queen. There is a clear peak on the 5th and 6th of September, the days when Boris Johnson and the new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, went to visit Her Majesty. With another peak on the day of her death, the toxicity has remained high ever since. Many were quick to jump on the idea that as Truss met the Queen only days before her death, the Queen’s death was Truss’s fault. In a TikTok video viewed thousands of times, their handshake has been referred to as the ‘handshake of death’. Other conspiracies on the cause of the Queen’s death included the age-old blaming of the Jewish people, and a relatively new common favourite, blaming the COVID-19 vaccine. And although many fake Twitter accounts claimed Queen Elizabeth had died earlier in the day than officially announced, others claimed she actually died many years ago.

While images and videos of the Queen throughout her life flooded the internet, one video in particular spiked some interest. A post found on both Facebook and Twitter appeared to show the Queen throwing handfuls of food to African children on the ground. However when fact checked by Full Fact, the footage was actually from 25 years before Queen Elizabeth II was even born. Although published on Full Fact’s website and listed as false information on Facebook, Twitter is yet to remove the video or label it as incorrect, thereby continuing to allow it to be amplified.

Other doctored images of the Queen were also making the rounds, such as the image below showing her giving a Nazi salute. Using TinEye reverse image search, this doctored image was first found on Twitter in 2018, but is appearing again now.

The conspiracy theory that seems to take precedence above all is one that began a couple of decades ago, and continues to grow and reformulate as more people across the world claim to believe in it. In the late 1990s, conspiracy theorist David Icke claimed that members of the royal family are ‘nothing more than reptiles with crowns’. The idea encompasses not only that a global elite controls the world, but that this global elite are all reptiles. QAnon were quick to incorporate this conspiracy into their beliefs as well many years ago, despite only one mention of Queen Elizabeth II in the thousands of ‘Q drops’. But for QAnon followers, they refuse to believe the Queen’s death was a coincidence. She died 1,776 days after the first ever ‘Q drop’, and the number 1776 is treated as a sign by QAnon, due to it being the year in which the U.S. became independent from Britain. There was also a mix of emotions for QAnon followers, with some rejoicing over her ‘finally official’ death, and others heeding warning that the lizard ‘prisoner’ has now been released.

With these conspiracies spanning continents, it is incredibly difficult to keep on top of them. A group of lizard people controlling the world may be funny and unrealistic to some, but the radicalisation pathway it can take people down can, and has, resulted in fatalities. Queen Elizabeth II’s death was reported on throughout the world, however social media makes it easy to share content without thinking about where it has come from, or checking to see if it is, in fact, a reputable news site making the report, and it can be easy to get sucked into conspiracies surrounding such largely spoken about events.

This article was originally published on the European Observatory of Online Hate.

Subscribe to their mailing list to stay up to date!

The Queen’s conspiracies continue: an analysis of the online conversations surrounding the death of Queen Elizabeth II

September 16, 2022 — HANNAH RICHTER