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28th Jun 2015

Video: CNN mistakenly thought a flag covered with sex toys at a Gay Pride parade belonged to ISIS

Try again CNN

Conor Heneghan

Don’t CNN know a butt plug when they see one?

As was the case in Dublin, thousands of people gathered in London yesterday to celebrate the annual Pride parade, a parade that brought great colour to the streets and was particularly significant given the historic same-sex marriage ruling in the US on Friday.

As you’d expect, there were plenty of flags on show to signify support for the LGBTQ community, but one flag in particular was the source of much paranoia amongst one of the biggest news organisations on the planet.

CNN reporter Lucy Pawle and CNN National Security Analyist Peter Bergen spent a not insignificant amount of time discussing the flag, which, to be fair to them, did bear resemblance to ISIS paraphenalia, albeit with one pretty big difference.

What big difference? That’s not Arabic lettering you can see marked out on the flag, or even gobbledygook as Lucy suggested, but a host of sex toys including dildos and butt plugs.

CNN obviously didn’t realise it at the time, but to be fair to Pawle, it was repeatedly pointed out to her on Twitter afterwards and she acknowledged her mistake by retweeting some of the tweets that made her aware of her rather amusing error.

https://twitter.com/jimdotsg/status/614844812479459328

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y6qTLf0AI4

Clip via YouTube/Tony Hodges

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