'Hey Liz, who are you loving on X Factor?': Queen joins Twitter to send message at science exhibition - but was one amused by the response from her subjects?
- The Queen sent the tweet to declare a new science exhibition open
- She touched a tablet computer screen to send her first message on the site
- The tweet with perfect punctuation was signed off by 'Elizabeth R'
- It was sent on the official @BritishMonarchy Twitter account this morning
- The tweet already has its own hashtag #thequeentweets which was trending
- Tweet prompted a flood of responses welcoming her to Twitter
- It also brought out her first troll who replied: 'Welcome to Twitter. Abdicate'
- Queen follows Prince Andrew and Prince Harry who have also tweeted
The Queen has joined the Twitter generation - sending her first ever tweet to declare a new exhibition at the Science Museum officially open.
The royal tweet, with perfect punctuation, read: 'It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R.'
But now the account is being bombarded with questions from users desperate to grab the monarch's attention.
One asked about her X Factor favourite while another urged the Queen, who he referred to as 'babe', to send out a selfie.
The Queen takes off her glove to touch a tablet screen to send her first message via Twitter to officially open a new exhibition at the Science Museum in central London .
The Tweet sent by the Queen via the @BritishMonarchy account, which was signed off 'Elizabeth R'
The tweet has already seen the hashtag #TheQueenTweets trending on the social media site
New friends? Some Twitter users have been very personal with the Queen, asking her for a selfie
While other Twitter users were just happy to see the monarch using the site with one even asking who she was loving on X Factor
The Queen sent out the message on a tablet computer after touring the exhibition, which explores how breakthroughs have transformed the way people communicate over the past 200 years.
The Queen's message was sent via the official @BritishMonarchy Twitter account, gaining its own hashtag #thequeentweets.
As soon as the monarch pressed send, Twitter users were quick to send their own messages back.
Many were sent by users welcoming the monarch to social media - with some encouraging her to embrace internet trends such as selfies and memes.
However within just minutes of sending her first tweet, the Queen had already attracted her first troll.
Four minutes after she tweeted, one user replied telling her: 'Welcome to twitter! Abdicate.'
One Twitter user offered some advice to the Queen suggesting 'more kooky hashtags' and 'cat meme' for her next tweet
The parody account @Queen_UK tweeted their tongue-in-cheek disapproval to the monarch's first ever tweet
After Her Majesty sent the tweet, it appeared on the screen behind her for assembled guests to see
He then continued saying: 'I like the fact that being a republican is now lower-effort than ever.'
While others were pleased to see her on the social media forum and seized the opportunity to ask what they've always wanted to know.
One asked: 'Hey Liz, who are you loving on X Factor?!'
While another said: 'When will your selfie be, please your highness?'
This afternoon the tweet was being displayed at the top of the BT Tower in central London as BT are the lead sponsors of the new exhibition
The Queen's visit to the Science Museum in South Kensington comes after the opening of a new £15.6million gallery
During her reign the Queen has encountered many of the technological advances shown in the new exhibit
The Queen was accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh on her visit to the museum, where she was presented with a technology themed bouquet of flowers
She was also given suggestions on what to tweet next with users asking her for 'kooky hashtags' and cat memes.
But one account that welcomed the tweet with caution was popular parody account @Queen_UK.
The humorous feed, which has almost two million followers posted: 'Can't believe someone's started a sodding parody account', with a picture of the tweet.
The Queen watches herself at the Coronation on a television set from the 1950s at the exhibition called 'Information Age'
During her reign, the Queen has encountered a rapidly changing technological world. Here she inspects an aerial tuning inductor from Roughby Radio Station in 1943
The tweet was sent at the £15.6 million gallery at the museum in South Kensington, London features more than 800 objects and explores how breakthroughs have transformed the way people communicate over the past 200 years.
Normally a plaque is unveiled to herald the launch of a new project by a royal but this time the Queen, aged 88, sent the tweet, marking a technological milestone.
For her visit to the museum she wore a vibrant blue coat and hat, with some on Twitter pointing out her colour choice was similar to that of the site's bird logo.
During her reign the Queen has encountered a rapidly-changing world of technology from the advent of the colour television to the mobile phone and the internet.
Television cameras were allowed inside Westminster Abbey in 1953 to film her Coronation and more than half a million extra television sets were sold in the weeks running up to the historic event.
Five years later she made the first trunk call in the United Kingdom and when email technology was in its infancy, the Queen became the first monarch to send one of the electronic messages, in 1976 during a visit to an Army base.
The concept of video-sharing website YouTube was explained to her by granddaughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie before she launched her own channel on the site in 2007 to promote the British monarchy.
Her own website, www.royal.gov.uk, was launched in 1997 during a visit to Kingsbury High School in Brent, north west London.
Other technological milestones for the Queen include personally uploading a video on to YouTube, during a visit to the Google offices in London in 2008.
However, she isn't the first royal to use Twitter as her son, the Duke of York is the most prolific tweeter in the royal family and has an account under his own name.
He signs off messages he has written with AY, for Andrew York.
The micro-blogging site has also been used by her grandson Prince Harry, who sent his first official tweet in May, but he admitted during the summer he no longer has a personal account, when chatting to a group of students who were promoting his Invictus Games on social media.
The Queen and members of her family are represented on Twitter by the account @BritishMonarchy, while @ClarenceHouse covers the Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.
The Queen isn't the only member of the royal family to have tweeted. Her son the Duke of York has his own Twitter account and her grandson Prince Harry has also used the micro-blogging site
The Queen launched her own website in 1997 during a visit to a London school while in 2008 she uploaded her first video to YouTube
The Queen's grandson Prince Harry has also used Twitter and sent his first official tweet in May
The prince sent the tweet to promote his Invictus Games, which was held in London for injured servicemen and women
11.35am: QUEEN'S FIRST TWEET... FOUR MINUTES LATER, HER FIRST TROLL
Normally a plaque is unveiled by a member of the royal family to launch a new project, but this time the Queen decided to mark a technological milestone
The Queen made technological history again yesterday but she learned she will also have to roll with the inevitable punches of the internet age.
Because just four minutes after sending her first ever tweet, the Queen became a victim of trolling.
At 11:35am Her Majesty’s message went out from the @BritishMonarchy account to 724,000 followers on Twitter as she opened a gallery at the Science Museum in London.
The tweet read: ‘It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R.’
Initially the post was retweeted, or shared, nearly 7,000 times, with the Science Museum becoming the first to reply. ‘We’re honoured The Queen chose to open our Information Age gallery by sending her first tweet,’ their message read.
But at 11:39am one user lowered the tone considerably, posting: ‘Welcome to Twitter! Abdicate.’ Sadly it was retweeted more than 100 times.
The user later posted: ‘I like the fact that being a republican is now lower-effort than ever’, suggesting that they think they will be able to reach the Queen directly with their anti-monarchy views.
Soon other Twitter users had joined in sending abusive messages, some of which are too unpleasant to publish here.
Conor Burns, Tory MP for Bournemouth West, attacked the original ‘abdicate’ tweet. ‘People say things on Twitter that they would never dare say face to face,’ he said. ‘It’s incredibly disrespectful.’
Andrew Rosindell, Tory MP for Romford, added: ‘It’s an insult. We have a monarchy that’s living in the modern world and for anyone to respond in that way is scandalous.’
The tweet brought out her the Queen's first troll who after welcoming her to Twitter then told her to abdicate
Thomas Mace Archer-Mills, chairman of the British Monarchist Society, said: ‘It’s incredibly disrespectful. She is showing she is keeping up to date and embracing technology and change.’
Last night it was unclear which device was used to send the Queen’s tweet. Although she was pictured with an iPad, it was later claimed that an iPhone had been used, suggesting she had not sent it herself. However, a spokesman for Buckingham Palace confirmed: ‘The Queen tweeted this morning from the Science Museum.’
