Screenshot of a Facebook post sharing a screenshot of a suspended X account and falsely claiming that it is the official UK government X account. (Source: Screenshot/Facebook/Modified by Logically Facts)
Although the screenshot closely resembles an official British government X-account, it does not show a government-related account.
Claim ID 08e816ca
What is the claim?
Several UK Facebook users have posted a screenshot of a suspended X (formerly Twitter) account with the username “@ukgov”, claiming that it shows that the UK government’s official X account has been “suspended due to threatening British citizens”.
“The official UK government account @ukgov has just been blocked for threatening its own citizens. Thanks @elonmusk!” read one such Facebook post. Similar posts were also seen on X. Archived versions of some of these posts can be found here, here, here and here.
Screenshots of posts sharing footage of a suspended X account and falsely claiming it shows the official UK government X account. (Source: Screenshot/X/Facebook/Modified from Logically Facts)
These posts emerged shortly after several people were jailed for inciting unrest on social media. The Crown Prosecution Service, which is responsible for prosecutions in England and Wales, then issued a warning on social media about prosecutions and urged those affected to think before posting.
However, the “blocked” account has nothing to do with the British government.
What did we find?
We searched for the X-account with the username “@ukgov” that appears in the viral screenshots alongside the claim that it belongs to the British government. We found that X has actually blocked the account.
Although this now-suspended account is very similar to the @GOVUK account in terms of usernames, they are different. The latter is active on the platform with around 23,000 posts and 1.9 million followers, and the bio identifies the account as the “Official X-Channel of the GOV.UK website.” The account’s last post dates back to August 13, at the time of writing this story.
Comparison between screenshots of the blocked account and the official account on the UK government website. (Source: Screenshots/X/Modified from Logically Facts)
In addition, the official UK government website account has a grey verification icon, clearly indicating that the account has been verified since 2012 “because it is a government or multilateral organization account”. The other account does not have such an icon.
Screenshots showing the user IDs of the banned X account and the UK government account. (Source: Screenshots/X/Modified by Logically Facts)
We also checked the user ID of both accounts, a unique numerical code assigned to each account, and found that they are separate and independent of each other. The unique numerical code for the @GOVUK account is 17481977, while the code for the suspended @ukgov account is 35165295.
What about the blocked account?
Next, we searched for archives of the X account and found the earliest archived version from 2010 His bio says, “What the British government should do.” This shows that the user was not claiming to be the official British government account at the time.
Screenshot of an archive of the X account in question. (Source: Screenshot/X/Modified by Logically Facts)
We could also see that the user had uploaded some posts on September 6, 2010, tagging an account called “Bella Bathrooms,” a UK-based bathroom equipment supplier. It is highly unlikely that such messages were posted by an official UK government social media account. We also saw some now-defunct eBay links posted by the same account around the same time.
Another archive from July 4, 2020 showed that the X account in question was in a “locked” state. This confirmed that the account on X has been locked since at least 2020. Archives of 2023 And 2024 continued to show the respective account in a blocked state.
We found social media posts where the two X usernames “@GOVUK” and “@ukgov” were clearly confused. Users also shared a screenshot (archived here) of a report from the real UK government account, @GOVUK, and wondered if this was the reason the @ukgov account was suspended.
However, while the former is the authentic and official account of the British government website, the latter is the blocked account that does not belong to the British government.
X, British government clarifies
Logically Facts contacted X about the issue and learned that the account is not an official UK government account. X’s press team also pointed us to the actual official account and to an August 9, 2024 X post from the official @Safety account (archived here) that addressed the suspended account as follows: “This is not the official UK government account – @GovUK is.”
A press spokesman for the British Cabinet Office also referred us to the official X-Account for the UK Prime Minister’s Office and told us that “https://x.com/GOVUK” is the official UK government website account. They added that individual departments generally have social media accounts, with a number of them across the government.
The verdict
The viral screenshot does not show the official UK government X-account, as claimed, but an independent, separate account. UK government officials confirmed that “@GOVUK” is the username of the official UK government website X-account, which is functional and has not been blocked.
