No, the Daily Mail did not tell May to 'GO NOW'

A fake Daily Mail front cover went viral after fooling thousands of people, including journalists and politicians.

Perhaps it's a sign of the political times we live in that so many people were willing to believe that a crudely Photoshopped Daily Mail front cover calling for Prime Minister Theresa May to resign was genuine.

The image appeared under the hashtag #TomorrowsPapersToday, which Twitter users routinely use for sneak peeks at newspaper front pages. It was posted by a user going by the name "Lying Tory Media", which gives you an idea of their political perspective:

The fake Daily Mail front cover calling for the Prime Minister to "GO NOW"

The font is totally different from that used by the newspaper, and the layout of the fake page is based on a real and much-discussed Daily Mail cover published just after the prime minister called the snap election:

A real Daily Mail front cover from 19 April

The fake cover was picked up by others and in total was retweeted and liked thousands of times.

Several journalists were taken in, as was the former MP George Galloway and other political observers, many of whom took the image as a sign of May's weakness following Conservative losses in the snap election.

Others quickly saw through the fake, however:

BBC Trending contacted the person behind the "Lying Tory Media" account, but they haven't yet responded. The real Daily Mail front cover for 19 June featured a photo of the devastation inside Grenfell Tower:

Blog by Mike Wendling

You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.