The Vatican is now investigating how @franciscus, the official Instagram account of Pope Francis “liked” a post of a scantily clad Brazilian model and influencer Natalia Garibotto. The photo captioned: “I can teach you a thing or two. Can’t wait for you guys to see my October shoot on my site” was liked on the social media platform more than one hundred thousand times when Garibotto’s followers noticed that it was “liked” by the account of the Pope. Garibotto’s Instagram account has more than 2.4 million followers. The Pope’s Instagram account with more than 7.4 million followers does not follow Garibotto’s account.
The Vatican earlier said that the social media accounts of the Pope is managed by a team but clarified that the photo was not “liked” by any of its staff. The Catholic News Agency reported that “the Vatican press office confirmed to CNA that the pope’s various social media accounts are managed by a team of employees and that an internal investigation is underway to determine how the “like” happened.”
What could have happened?
Two things could have happened here. First, the social media moderator of the Pope could have mistakenly thought that he is using his personal Instagram account while viewing Garibotto’s posts and clicked “like” while on the Pope’s account. Second, the Pope himself could have clicked the like button while using his account but this is very unlikely, neither Garibotto nor the Pope is following each other on Instagram, and it was said that the Pope does not access social media on his own.
Also, administrators and moderators mistakenly updating or posting non-related content is not new in social media. News outlets have posted time and time again about being tired and was found out to be from social media moderators who thought that they are using their personal accounts.
Just recently, Governor Johnvic Remulla’s live stream showed the account of social media influencer Macoy Dubs, the incident made people conclude that Macoy is the man behind the governor’s witty posts and comments. The truth is, it was the fault of the live stream provider who got confused about the simultaneous events and carelessly switched the accounts. Our source also clarified that Macoy Dubs was never the governor’s influencer and that they don’t know each other at the time of the mixed-up.