CNN Falls for ISIS Flag Prank at London Gay Pride Parade

A CNN reporter Saturday fell for a prank at the Gay Pride Parade in London: a black flag with a message made of sex-toy symbols that she thought was the banner of the Islamic State.

"This man dressed in black and white was waiving what appears to be a very bad mimicry, but a clear attempt to mimic, the ISIS flag," said CNN International reporter Lucy Pawle. "The black-and-white flag with the distinctive lettering.

"I mean, if you look at the flag closely, it’s clearly not Arabic," she continued. "In fact, it looks like it could be gobbledygook.

"But it’s very distinctive, the ISIS flag," Pawle said. She had even called event organizers and local police.

CNN reported on the sighting, even calling in a note terrorism expert — Peter Bergen, the author of several books on al-Qaida.

"Anyway, I seemed to be the only person who had spotted this," Pawle said in the report. "And nobody seemed to be raising any questions or pointing it out."

However, the flag carried "a cryptic message reading in Arabic, 'butt plugs," the International Journalism Review reports. The message was spelled out via sex toys.

While CNN has since removed the report from its website, Twitter was abuzz about the prank.

Here are some comments:

@PzFeed Mind you, I expect CNN to not know the difference since they remain willfully ignorant of ISIS.

— Canadian In USA (@Canadian_InUSA) June 27, 2015

@digg Everything about this is hilarious. Thanks @cnn.

— Trey D. (@Prophessional) June 27, 2015

@Gawker Best laugh I've had all year. Kudos to the person who created that flag, absolutely brilliant!

— G. LeSuer (@gman5116) June 27, 2015

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