Hand on heart, we think this image is totally genuine. 0k, well. Holly hunter, there. Its a disaster theres a lot to unpack there. There is. How did a social media post celebrating mothers day cause a royal Public Relations crisis. Great picture. Three lovely children smiling at the camera and kate looking really well. And then, suddenly, it all went pear shaped. There are various clues that indicate its been edited or changed in some way. And Fuel Allegations of fake news and Conspiracy Theories. The more outlandish, the wilder the Conspiracy Theory, the more traction its going to get. And send social media meme accounts into overdrive . The Traditional Press has been quite respectful, quite restrained. Out there in the wilds of social media, the opposite is true. This is the story of how the Princess Of Wales broke the internet, sparking Big Questions of trust and transparency in an age of disinformation. This story spiralled rapidly, so lets start at the beginning. What i reckon will be the headlines everywhere in the next few hours is this picture we can show you. Its just been released by The Royal Family showing the Princess Of Wales and her children for mothers day, after weeks of frenzied speculation about her health and her whereabouts. On The Morning Of Sunday 10th March 2024, the prince and princess of Wales William and kate posted a photo to their social media accounts, including instagram and x, saying the words, thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months. Wishing everyone a happy mothers day. The message was signed c for catherine, and the picture was credited to william, the prince of wales. The idea, i think, was to allay the concerns that people have had on social media and so on about kates health. And shes not been seen in public since christmas, apart from a Paparazzi Shot that didnt appear in this country. And so, there was great expectation that, you know, the photograph would help the situation, that we would see kates return to health and that everythings fine in the world of The Royal Family and the prince and Princess Of Wales. This was the First Official photo of the Princess Of Wales since the palace announced shed undergone Abdominal Surgery almost two months earlier. I just want to bring you some breaking news from Kensington Palace. This has been issued just in the last minute. Her royal highness, the Princess Of Wales thats catherine, the Princess Of Wales was admitted to the london clinic yesterday for planned Abdominal Surgery. It was supposed to reassure the public about the wellbeing of the princess. People just love a Conspiracy Theory, and so they start to speculate if somebodys been out of the limelight for quite a while. Id just like to have an answer to all the questions that most people are wondering, whats going on . I think its all been massively blown out of proportion. I dont think its a big deal, and i think it shouldnt take up nearly as much media time as it does when theres much more important things happening. I think this photograph put out on mothers day was an attempt to quell the rumours about the whereabouts and the wellbeing of catherine, Princess Of Wales. As we know, injanuary, she had a serious operation. We dont know exactly what for, but it was such that she had to spend two weeks in hospital, and then we were told that she would spend several months in recuperation. Initially, it had the desired effect dominating the next days front pages, most of which had gone to print the night before. I think it was a very simple pr move to say that william took it. Look, everythings happy in every part of life. Were all doing well. It was a post intended to mark mothers day against a background in which it would inevitably be seen as an attempt to stop Conspiracy Theories and speculation about catherine, but it had the opposite effect. Rumours, speculation and Conspiracy Theories went into overdrive. On the evening that the picture was posted, the Associated Press, one of the International News media agencies that distributed the photo, issued a kill notification a Media Industry term used to describe retraction of an image from circulation and use by media outlets. Ap said that the source has manipulated the image, the source being the prince and Princess Of Wales. So when a photograph is submittedj to all these various press agencies, they get passed around very, very quickly to be distributed j to all the magazines,. Tv news programmes all the different media teams. And so, if something is found to be manipulated, what they have to do is to give this it sounds very severe i a kill notice. That instantly tells everybody that this must absolutely be stopped being distributed because i something is wrong with it. And that could be. The caption is wrong. It could be wrongly dated in terms of the date, the place, the location. It could be misinformation. But manipulation is something which Cannot Go Through the press agencies. So, marianna, you look at images all the time and analyse them in a lot of detail. Talk us through whats actually problematic about this picture. Ok, so here, we have a very large version of the image that sparked a lot of controversy. And theres no suggestion or evidence that it was generated using ai, that its totally false. But instead, there are various clues that indicate its been edited, or changed in some way. So the first really obvious one that a lot of people spotted was princess charlottes sleeve thats here. Theres a kind of chunk missing on her left cardigan sleeve, which is really consistent with a photo having been edited. The second one is here, on the Princess Of Wales zip. You can see that the zip doesnt really fully align with the bit below, and that again is consistent with it having been edited in some way. And then another kind of quite obvious one is how blurry this hand is on prince louis side. So if you spend a fair bit of time, there are a few other clues as well. You can quite easily see that this was edited. We analysed the data attached to the image that was shared with the different press agencies, and what that tells us is that, actually, the image was edited twice using software on a computer. So, again, it kind of all matches up. But we havent been able to analyse the original image because Kensington Palace havent shared that. The kill notifications didnt stop with ap. Reuters said it also had withdrawn the image following a post publication review. French media agency afp then issued a mandatory kill notice. They were followed by getty images and then the press association. It is really unusual. There have been claims of some examples in the past, but this is really, really unusual. And also, i think its the sudden fall from grace, from a picture that was meant to be a nice, friendly family picture. Suddenly, its sort of attacked by these very aggressive looking kill notices. Major News Agencies specifically, the Associated Press and reuters pulled a photo released today by Kensington Palace over concerns that it may have been manipulated. Its very rare, but they have put in new rules very late. Like recently, with everything going on, with wars and so on. J so theyre being a lot hotter on what can and cant get through. I mean, its such a severe thing to get a kill notice, and i think its unfortunate The Royal Family were the first big names to get struck by it, with Everything Else going on with them. I think its unprecedented to do it this way round. I mean, i think The Royal Family have, in the past, stopped photographs that have been taken by the paparazzi or illegally. So its usually the palace thats put the block on the agencies releasing certain photographs, but this is the other way round. The palace have supplied a photograph and the agencies have said no presumably because of that, because theyre alarmed at the number of inconsistencies on the photograph and editing. In a way, this was intended to be a picture to kill off the rumours. But instead, whats happened is that the media has actually killed off this picture. Meanwhile, on instagram and other social media platforms, users commented on what they thought were efforts to edit the photograph, with some sharing Conspiracy Theories. The world of social media is a hungry beast, and news doesnt like a vacuum, and it was filled with all sorts of crazy Conspiracy Theories about where she was and how she was, and was she really ill, what was happening . I dont think anybody could avoid, if you use social media, coming across this in some way, and thats why its been quite important to explain now that the reason its really taken off is because of these kinds of Conspiracy Theories. And its notjust Conspiracy Theories. Like, some of it is very speculative, but i think a lot of people want to know the details. They want to understand more. They dont understand whats going on. There are various things that made them concerned or worried orjust a bit nosy. People online also made light of what News Agencies took very seriously, turning the incident into an unending stream of memes. Just in the Princess Of Wales is apologising over The Royal Family photo that several News Agencies pulled because it appeared to have been manipulated. Little more than 2a hours after the original photo had been posted, the Princess Of Wales posted an apology on social media. I was quite pleased that they dealt with it straight away, that a statement was issued from kate admitting and it was just the right tone, i think she admitted, im an Amateur Photographer and i did what a lot of people do, a bit of photo editing. And she didnt say she made a hash of it, but she implied that she, you know, perhaps should have left it to the professionals. Oh, no. Youre going to have to edit that. What did you think of their response to the whole thing . Well, i think there was a sort of howling gale of Media Interest in the story that morning. There had to be a response. They couldnt not say something. And, in a way, i think weve slightly overlooked how dramatic that was, because here was a very senior royal publicly apologising for something that theyd done. Thats really unusual in itself. I think also, people will have noticed that it was catherine who signed it with a c dot, you know, rather than it being a formal Princess Of Wales thing, and she took responsibility. Very nice to see you guys. The evening after the post, Prince William spoke at a public event, but made no mention of the incident that had dominated the headlines the previous 2a hours. I think where they havent shown the original photo and seem to be refusing to do so it makes you wonder, like, what is being hidden from it . How edited was this . The message from the palace was that were not going to see the original photograph, and i suspect theyll stick to that, because otherwise, people will be poring over it and seeing whats changed from that original picture and the one that was published. Itd be like the biggest game of spot the difference ever, wouldnt it, if we got the original and the edited . There would be pages and pages of arrows pointing at strange haircuts and missing fringes and stripes onjumpers. I think they wont go further than that, unless theyre forced to by other events, such as someone else possibly leaking the picture. But why did a photograph that had potential to end the speculation about the princesss health end up fuelling it . It was an attempt to stop these sort of crazy rumours. But, in fact, because of the problems with the authenticity and questions about whether it had been manipulated, its actually had the opposite effect. Its set a whole new world of crazy claims and Conspiracy Theories running across social media and across the front pages, too. And its an extraordinary. I suppose, what had been a sensible attempt to try and show how she was has, in fact, raised a whole load of other questions which are even harder to answer now. I think a photo that wasnt edited would have been a great idea, i but this photo, not so much. I think a video would have gone down very well, just some sort of form of evidence. But, you know, shes a very popular figure as well, i think, so shes very important to the royals in terms of their own pr and their own public face. Its her face thats on the front pages of papers. And her absence has really shown how much. How much shes been missed. The condition of the princess and the reason for her Abdominal Surgery two months earlier was not revealed by the royal household, although they said that the medical intervention was not cancer related. Weeks of speculation about her wellbeing and whereabouts followed. Initially, the palace said that it would only provide significant updates about the princesss condition and that she would not return to her royal duties before easter 202a. Its not just Conspiracy Theories. Some of it is very speculative. We were made aware that the Princess Of Wales wouldnt be appearing in public for some time after shed had this medical procedure. You know, you cant ever stop people asking genuine questions, but when theres this vacuum of information, you have both those things and then the stuff thats untrue and actually quite harmful because, ultimately, even though theyre royals, there are real people caught up in this. Amid rumours and Conspiracy Theories about the princesss welfare, Prince William continued with his public duties. He even received flowers for his wife on a public visit on 29th February 202a. If youve had even a Passing Glance at social media or online searches in recent days, theres been an enormous amount of rumour and gossip about the Princess Of Wales. Its been pretty wild in some places. Now, Kensington Palace know this, but they have stressed that nothing has changed here. They had always said that we wouldnt see the Princess Of Wales until after easter, and they say that her recovery is going well. There is a vacuum of information. People are genuinely looking for answers, understandably. Everyone becomes an amateur sleuth. Well, not quite everyone, but a lot of people. And theyre looking for clues and theyre picking over images and theyre posting videos and theyre sharing content and theyre getting likes, which is kind of further validating what theyre doing, and they know people will look at their content. Then it kind of spirals into the more extreme stuff disinformation, conspiracy. I found this time and time again, that the people who are at the centre of this, whether theyre really famous, really high profile, or whether theyre not famous at all, theyre just the average person, they find it really hard. The princess had not been seen in public since attending a Christmas Day service at sandringham in norfolk. Thank you so much. Thats very sweet of you to come and say hello to us. Yeah. Well, very happy christmas. Merry christmas. Fanfare plays on 5th march, the army removed a claim on its website that the Princess Of Wales would be appearing at Trooping The Colour injune 2024, as she had done the previous year. The claim had caused confusion, after Kensington Palace said it had not confirmed her appearance, but the army didnt seek approval from the palace before publishing the page. This rumour mill kept turning. I think whats important to understand here is that none of this happens in isolation. So it starts with questions about, wheres the Princess Of Wales . Then youve got examples of other posts that are shared online. The army, for example, on their website, shared an Upcoming Event where they suggested that the Princess Of Wales would be coming, and then that was removed and taken down. So all of these Littl