What was claimed
The UK Government’s X account has been suspended.
Our verdict
False. The screenshot being shared is of the @ukgov account, which is not an official UK Government account, and has been suspended since at least 2020.
The UK Government’s X account has not been suspended
20 August 2024
Some Facebook users have been sharing screenshots of a suspended X (formerly Twitter) account with the handle @ukgov, claiming that the platform has shut down the UK Government’s official account. The claim has also appeared on TikTok, where it has more than 69,000 likes.
One post says the account has been suspended “for violating the rules of the platform”.
In recent weeks X’s owner, Elon Musk, has publicly criticised the UK’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer after people were arrested or jailed for social media posts during the recent riots, which spread across the country after the Southport knife attacks, in which three children were killed.
Although the account with the handle ‘@ukgov’ is suspended, it is not the official UK Government account and never appears to have been. It has been suspended since at least July 2020. Archived versions of the account from 2010 show it tweeting complaints to a bathroom supply store and posting eBay links, something the real UK Government account would be very unlikely to do.
On 9 August 2024, X’s @Safety account confirmed @GovUK is the official UK Government account. The Cabinet Office also directed Full Fact to the real @GovUK account.
The real account has not been suspended and continues to regularly post updates.
It’s important to consider whether what you see is accurate before sharing it online. Our toolkit can help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because X has not suspended the UK Government’s official account.