Creator of that viral tube sign: 'I didn't think people would think it was real'

At 8.41pm on the day that terror hit Westminster, a doctor in Windsor called John Moore posted a picture he made on a well-known tube sign generator site to his Facebook page.

It said: “All terrorists are politely reminded that THIS IS LONDON and whatever you do to us, we will drink tea and jolly well carry on. Thank you.”

By midday the following day, his message was being read out in the House of Commons, inaccurately attributed to “a worker on the London Underground”.

Moore’s post is the kind seen all over social media in the wake of a terror attack. As a way of coping and encouraging others at a traumatic time, many people post and share images of solidarity. Moore says all he wanted to do was pay tribute to what he saw as an exemplary response by London’s emergency services to last week’s events.

“I was very impressed by everyone’s reactions to it,” Moore told the Guardian. “It was just a response to what I thought was a very British way of dealing with the whole thing. That was the whole point of the post.”

Moore says the past few days have been bizarre. While his message clearly resonated with thousands of people, he has also been accused of spreading “fake news”, despite never saying this was a real London Underground sign.

In fact, he believed the tube sign generator he used was so widely known that no one would believe it was real.

He said: “I assumed that was a well-known meme. It was used before, after the Leytonstone attack. I was quite relaxed about it.

“I just thought this was a recognised internet meme. I didn’t think people would think it was a real sign.”

As the share number on his Facebook post kept rising – hitting about 30,000 after seven hours – the sign began circulating on Twitter, often without context. The message itself, with all its hallmarks of Britishness, struck a chord – including with many journalists, presenters and pundits.

We know what followed – Nick Robinson read out the message on Radio 4’s flagship Today programme. It was then praised by Theresa May in parliament.

“That was completely crazy,” said Moore, who didn’t realise it had been read out on the radio until this weekend. “The fact it went from my Facebook to the Commons in 16 hours – I guess that’s the power of the internet.

“We have to be mindful of that when we’re posting online. It’s an incredibly powerful medium.”

The pervading debate afterwards was: does it matter whether it was real or not? According to YouGov, 50% of British people didn’t feel the sign’s message was diminished. Many of the journalists who shared it later said they didn’t feel it mattered it was fake – it was the sentiment that was important.

This was a reaction Moore saw, too. “A lot of people were touched by the sentiment, at the end of the day,” he said.

“We often hear stories about how the internet is a force for bad things. Well, if people find the sentiment helpful, maybe we have to acknowledge it can also be a force for good.”