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The Vatican is seeking an explanation from Instagram on how the pope’s official Instagram account ‘liked’ a photo of a scantily clad Brazilian model.
Pope Francis’ account “liked” the picture of Natalia Garibotto, who was dressed up in a school uniform of sorts.
The image has since been ‘unliked’ by the account.
“We can exclude that the ‘like’ came from the Holy See”, a Vatican spokesperson told the Guardian.
The pope’s official Instagram account, which is under the user name franciscus, has 7.4 million followers worldwide.
The account does not follow any other accounts.
On Twitter, Pope Francis is followed by 18.8 million accounts.
Pope Francis very rarely composes social media content himself.
“The pope is not like Donald Trump, he’s not sitting around using his phone or computer to tweet all day long,” said Robert Mickens, the editor of the English-language edition of La Croix.
“He does, for example, approve the tweets – but not the likes – and on very rare occasions he has said he would like to tweet something because of a developing situation or emergency.
“So he would have nothing to do with this.
“It’s the communications department, and how this happens, who knows.”
Sources close to the Vatican’s press office told the Catholic News Agency on Tuesday that the accounts were “managed by a team of employees.”
Ms Garibotto told one Instagram follower she was “excited” about the “like” as she was religious.
The model, who has 2.4 million Instagram followers, is also reported to have joked: “At least I’m going to heaven.”
Sources
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News category: World.
