via Twitter/@sciencemuseum
Queen Elizabeth II has dipped her toe in the Twittersphere by sending out her very first tweet.
The 88-year-old British Monarch posted the tweet via the official British Monarchy account while opening the new Information Age gallery at London’s Science Museum.
“It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting,” she wrote before signing the tweet “Elizabeth R.”
While it may have been taken over by the head of the commenwealth today, the @britishmonarchy account has been active since 2009 and is normally run by palace officials.
The information technology gallery charts the history of modern communications. The Museum itself took to the social network following the tweet, describing the Queen’s tweet as, “Something one doesn’t see everyday”.
It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R.
— BritishMonarchy (@BritishMonarchy) October 24, 2014
The last tweet was sent personally by The Queen from her official Twitter account @BritishMonarchy #TheQueenTweets
— BritishMonarchy (@BritishMonarchy) October 24, 2014
Something one doesn’t see everyday… The Queen sends her first tweet to open #smInfoAge #TheQueenTweets pic.twitter.com/yOeK6Jlnxx
— Science Museum (@sciencemuseum) October 24, 2014
The validity of the tweet has been called into question, however, first by The Verge, who says it was posted using an iPhone and not the iPad the Queen appeared to be using. The Independent, meanwhile, pointed to photographs posted on Twitter that apparently show a volunteer who prepared the Queen’s iPad and typed out the message for her.
LOVE Chi who was in charge of the @BritishMonarchy iPad + “ones first tweet” pic.twitter.com/zJXwKIGxD6
— martha lane fox (@Marthalanefox) October 24, 2014
Regardless, the tweet has thus far been retweeted over 14,000 times. In a statement, Science Museum director Ian Blatchford spoke of The Queen’s history of keeping up to date with new technology.
“I mentioned earlier that Queen Victoria took a great interest in the invention of the telephone, and Your Majesty has followed in this tradition of embracing new technology. You made the first live Christmas broadcast in 1957 and an event relished by historians took place on 26 March 1976, when you became the first monarch to send an email, during a visit to the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment.”
