Russian State Media republishes April Fool's day joke

On 1st April, the UK Defence Journal website published a satirical article claiming that the Royal Navy was building a new supercarrier to be called "HMS Prince Andrew." 

The obviously tongue-in-cheek article said the carrier would be armed with Cold War-era Harriers or “naval Typhoons” launched via six catapults, and cost the taxpayer a modest £987.6 billion.

The author of the original joke piece George Allison said 

“As part of our usual April Fools’ Day tradition, we published a clearly satirical piece about a fictional third aircraft carrier—HMS Prince Andrew—complete with absurd details like ‘go faster stripes’ and ‘crayons’. It was meant to be obviously fake, and it was written to make people laugh.”

However, Allison said the intention of the piece was also to see if outlets “eager to undermine the UK” would pick up the story without fact checking it.

And boy oh boy, didn't they just.

Russian state media outlet RT, formerly Russia Today, republished the story as fact.

















OOPS!


It is unclear whether the state-funded outlet deliberately misconstrued the article or genuinely thought it was a real news story.

As George Allison said,

“If they took it seriously, it would highlight a lack of basic editorial scrutiny. If they knew it was satire and published it anyway, it would say something more deliberate about their intent. Either outcome would be revealing.

“That’s exactly what happened. A Russian state media outlet picked up the story and presented it as real. It’s easy to laugh, but it also points to something important: how easily disinformation or narrative-shaping content can spread when verification is skipped in favour of a message.”

For the avoidance of doubt, the British Royal Navy has no plans to build a third Queen Elizabeth-class carrier, and there are certainly no plans to name one after Mr Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

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