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Gunboats The Sun Tweet

Update: The Sun didn't delete Katie Hopkins ‘show me bodies floating in water’ tweet in midst of today’s front page

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

September 3, 2015 | 3 min read

The Sun did not delete tweets alluding to Katie Hopkins’ widely reviled ‘Rescue boats? I’d use gunships to stop migrants” column on the same day its latest front page used the powerful image of a dead Syrian child refugee to try and convince the UK government to intervene in Europe's ongoing refugee crisis.

After social media users found that a link to a several months old promotional tweet offering a one month trial of the Sun+ was severed, some users alluded to the fact this was due to newspaper’s newfound compassion towards refugees in today’s front page.

However, a spokesman for the paper said: "If one was deleted, it was deleted at the time the article was published many months ago and was probably due to clashing with an existing tweet or duplication."

Tweets for sharing columnist's sentiment “Show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad. I still don’t care” quote, are still live on the Sun's Twitter feed promoting an article urging gunboats to further impede the efforts of refuges attempting to make the crossing to Europe from North Africa.

That call for violence is now somewhat at odds with a new narrative universally put forward by the UK media today (Thursday 3 September), condemning the conditions which ultimately resulted in the harrowing image of a drowned child who perished during the crossing.

The widely reviled article in question remains live on the site however, five months ago it was condemned by a UN human rights chief and helped muster over 313,000 peoples' signatures on a petition calling for her dismissal.

The title comes under scrutiny just a day after Tony Gallagher took on the role of editor, with the incident serving as likely the first of many the news veteran will have to handle.

*The Drum amended the piece to reflect that The Sun was not deleting historic tweets regarding Katie Hopkin's opinions

Gunboats The Sun Tweet

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