Adam Kay’s viral thread about the Queen’s accidental data share is a lesson for everyone
Queen Elizabeth II acceded to the throne on the 6th of February 1952 on the death of her father, King George VI, which means she has now been the monarch for 70 years.
To celebrate the milestone, the Royal Family Twitter account – because that’s a thing now – released several photos of the Queen with her despatch boxes, which hold important documents of state for Her Majesty’s perusal.
This was the most recent.
This photograph has been released to mark Accession Day 2022: the 70th anniversary of Her Majesty’s reign and the start of her #PlatinumJubilee year. #HM70 pic.twitter.com/Ars3zaPusT
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) February 6, 2022
The image was the focus of many well-wishes sent via Twitter, which we’ve no doubt Her Maj spotted as she scrolled through, looking for jokes to send to the family WhatsApp group.
God save the Queen. A rock of stability and a beacon for our values.#PlatinumJubilee #HM70 https://t.co/aUA2REkD0P
— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) February 6, 2022
Sending our Patron HM The Queen our congratulations and best wishes on the 70th anniversary of her accession. #PlatinumJubilee #HM70 https://t.co/xOZXQodYAj
— London Symphony Orchestra (@londonsymphony) February 6, 2022
Congratulations to Her Majesty on 70 years of dedicated service. Thank you. https://t.co/w9HmnnoM2d
— Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland (@ScotSecofState) February 7, 2022
There were some less serious reactions.
Hard to believe she's already halfway through her reign. https://t.co/569dyPgMcQ
— Pudd'nhead Watson (@ML_Watson) February 6, 2022
i want a picture of her holding todays newspaper https://t.co/ctwRPt9UA0
— ariANAL grande ☭ (they/them) (@emowag420) February 6, 2022
Mate, her laptop looks old https://t.co/uKTnFAkc2T
— Rob Hughes 🎬 (@rob_the_sound) February 7, 2022
Comedian and best-selling author of This is Going to Hurt, Adam Kay, used the tweet to make a very important point about the dangers of putting sensitive information in photos on the internet, and the thread went viral.
We can hardly believe the Queen’s social media manager let this happen.
A quick thread on in the importance of being careful what data you share – even if you're the Queen. Today, Her Maj tweeted this lovely picture, gor bless er, etc. You might think that the contents of the red box would be official business. And you'd be right. 1/6 pic.twitter.com/y1RspNRUzy
— Adam Kay (@amateuradam) February 6, 2022
Now, bearing in mind this is just what I can achieve as an amateur Adam with a laptop, it makes you wonder what other matters of state might have been shared over the years. Let's spin this round a bit and have a quick look at the top document. 2/6 pic.twitter.com/GDAszPvOqK
— Adam Kay (@amateuradam) February 6, 2022
A quick click of the Perspective Warp function on Photoshop gets it looking a little bit squarer. 3/6 pic.twitter.com/yWm2L2Ycnn
— Adam Kay (@amateuradam) February 6, 2022
We can probably lose the colour at this point as we're just looking at text. And given we've lost the bit under the red box in any case, I'm just going to concentrate on the words down the left hand side. Here. 4/6 pic.twitter.com/zq6mcYmL5C
— Adam Kay (@amateuradam) February 6, 2022
Not looking great, I'd agree. And we're not in 24 where you can magically sharpen a CCTV image. BUT. When it's text you're looking at, computers do have a major card up their sleeves. Words are simply patterns of pixels, and having looked at multi-zillions of them, they're… 5/6
— Adam Kay (@amateuradam) February 6, 2022
…remarkably good at guessing what a word might be, even if the words are fuzzy round the edges. Optical character recognition, it's called. So – without further ado – I've overlaid the best guess (99.3% accuracy per character) for the document in question. 6/6 pic.twitter.com/VBkVQDhpsZ
— Adam Kay (@amateuradam) February 6, 2022
We’re very grateful to Adam for going to these lengths for everybody’s benefit. You wouldn’t get this from any other guy.
The thread has been shared 53,000 times, liked more than 126,000 times and has more than 16 million impressions. Here are just a few reactions.
Absolutely brilliant 🤣🤣🤣
— Rachel Clarke (@doctor_oxford) February 6, 2022
Such an important thread https://t.co/wNh7ZmEQco
— Greg Jenner (@greg_jenner) February 6, 2022
FFS…you got me. I'm so annoyed but also in complete awe of how well you did that.
— Martin Long (@martinlong87) February 6, 2022
This thread is a lesson in how we all have to be careful on the mean streets of Twitter https://t.co/t4WkCHNS2m
— Annalee (@LeeFlower) February 6, 2022
How is this not bigger news? https://t.co/N7l8oYTDbd
— Laura Shortridge-Scott 💙 (@DiscordianKitty) February 7, 2022
Lawyer Rabia Chaudry said what a lot of people were probably thinking.
God DAMMIT ADAM https://t.co/3nBSM6xDP1
— rabia O'chaudry (@rabiasquared) February 7, 2022
At the time of writing, you can catch the adaptation of This is Going to Hurt, starring Ben Wishaw as Adam, on BBC One on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. or on iPlayer.
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Source Adam Kay Image Royal Family