An image shared by the Prime Minister on X shows him Photoshopped into a picture of University of Kentucky college students.
This is false. The image is genuine and was taken when the Prime Minister visited a college in Cornwall in February 2023.
A number of social media posts have incorrectly claimed that an image shared by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on social media has been Photoshopped.
The image in question was shared by Mr Sunak’s X (formerly Twitter) account on 4 October as part of a post about proposals to change the law around the sale of cigarettes, which he had announced in his speech at the Conservative party conference.
The picture shows Mr Sunak with a group of teenagers, which some have claimed used a stock image of students from the University of Kentucky, with the Prime Minister Photoshopped in.
One such post shared to Facebook says: “Mate you need to tell your photoshop team to bear in mind that when they search for stock images, "UK" also stands for University of Kentucky.”
While it is the case that one of the teenagers in the photo appears to be wearing a hoodie with University of Kentucky branding, as others have pointed out, the image is genuine, and was taken in the UK.
The original picture was posted on the Conservative party’s Flickr account on 9 February, with a caption stating that it shows Mr Sunak during a visit to Truro and Penwith College in Cornwall.
False or misleading claims made about politicians online have the potential to harm trust in politicians and the democratic process. Online claims can spread fast and far, and are difficult to contain and correct. You can read our guide on how to verify images here.
Image courtesy of Julian Christ
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 the image is not Photoshopped. It was taken when the Prime Minister visited a college in Cornwall in February this year.
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