By: Ankita Kulkarni
May 13 2024
Viral screenshot of 'op-ed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan' in The Guardian is fabricated
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Screenshot of viral posts on social media. (Source: X/Facebook/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)
Fact-Check
The Verdict Fake
The Guardian confirmed that Sadiq Khan did not write such a column, and called the screenshot fake.
Claim ID 74471812
What is the claim?
Social media users are circulating a screenshot of a purported opinion piece published by The Guardian, attributing it to London Mayor Sadiq Khan. The headline in the screenshot reads, “Muslims built London. I will ensure their contribution to my city is prioritised above all else. Diversity is our strength.” Archived versions of the posts can be viewed here, here, here, and here.
The claim surfaced days after Khan was re-elected as London Mayor for the third consecutive time, defeating his Conservative opponent Susan Hall.
Screenshot of the viral posts on social media. (Source: X/Facebook/Modified by Logically Facts)
However, Logically Facts found that the screenshot is fake, and The Guardian has not published such an article authored by Khan.
What did we find?
A keyword search for the headline in the viral screenshot yielded no results. The viral posts show the purported article's publishing date to be "Wed 8 May 2024 21:50 GMT." We looked into The Guardian's official website but did not find any such opinion pieces published on May 8 under the author “Sadiq Khan.”
Although the viral picture mimics the organization's font size, style, and color, we observed that the opinion pieces on The Guardian’s website are published in BST (British Summer Time), while the screenshot of the purported article shows the dateline in GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). This indicated that the screenshot was not genuine.
(Comparison between the time format in the viral screenshot and an actual
piece published by The Guardian. (Source: X/The Guardian/Screenshots/Modified by LogicallyFacts)
We then contacted The Guardian for clarification, and the organization responded, “The screenshot shared is not and has never been an article or headline published by The Guardian.”
Logically Facts has also contacted the London Mayor’s office for a comment. We will update this fact-check once receive a response.
We have previously debunked similar fake screenshots of The Guardian, including articles falsely attributed to different authors, activists, and politicians. The articles can be read here, here, and here.
The verdict
The viral screenshot claiming to show an op-ed from The Guardian written by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is fabricated. The Guardian confirmed that they never published the alleged article. Therefore, we have marked the claim as fake.