Twitter Is Full of Fake History Photos

The Twitter war between historians and history-photo accounts has been going on for years — but now, as it becomes clearer than ever that inaccurate information floating around on Twitter can affect the course of world events, the battle has taken on new importance.

As Rebecca Onion ably explained for Slate back in 2014, accounts such as @HistoryinPics, @HistoricalPics, @HistoryInPix and dozens of others produce inaccurate or fake content, and fail to properly attribute the artist or institution from which it was lifted — often to the point of absurdity.

A few days ago, @historylvrsclub posted what it identified as “a genuine conversation between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.” No year, no source, no context offered, likely because whomever is behind the account didn’t bother to look it up — or even read the content of the post itself, which is obviously a parody. If @historylvrsclub had taken just a moment to google any line from the “bogus transcript,”it would have quickly figured out the progenitor was comedian Michael Spicer.