Buckingham Palace has issued a statement this morning to deny rumours that the Queen had died.
Panic spread across Twitter last night as false rumours that Queen Elizabeth had died were posted.
A fake BBC account shared the information, saying: "BREAKING: Buckingham Palace announces the death of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 90. Circumstances are unknown. More to follow."
The account was later suspended, but not before lots of people on the social media site had shared the post. Rumours of a media blackout then began spreading like wildfire, which led to the hashtag #mediablackout trending around the UK.
Looks like a fake BBC account reporting that the queen is dead pic.twitter.com/kVKYucUv88
— Anthony Cheung (@AWMCheung) December 29, 2016
The Queen had missed the Christmas church service at Sandringham on Christmas Day for the first time in nearly 30 years due to illness.
A palace spokesman said today "The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh continue to recover from their heavy colds."
It is so 2016 that we all immediately believed that The Queen was dead because IT'S 2016.
— kat calvin (@KatCalvinLA) December 29, 2016
