News that all tweets emanating from Westminser Abbey during the Royal Wedding on Friday are to be blocked by police has turned out to be false.

Yahoo News reported that "event organisers arranged for signal-blocking technology to be installed at Westminster Abbey", fearing that guests would tweet info ahead of the service.

Quite what risk an over zealous tweeter could pose is uncertain, although a more understandable concern could be the prospect of unattended mobiles going off during the service.

"HELLO? I'M IN THE ABBEY! WHAT? NO, IT'S RUBBISH." That kind of thing.

It seems this is a moot point now, though, after the Met police confirmed to our sister site The INQUIRER that the story is complete rubbish.

That aside, Ofcom has also confirmed that putting in place signal jamming technology would be illegal, so it's unlikely that such plans ever existed.

Quite where Yahoo conjured the story from is unclear, given that April Fool's Day was long ago.

Maybe the clue lies in the fact that the story was written by Yahoo's LA-based sports correspondent. We've heard the cutbacks are bad at Yahoo, but we didn't think it extended to this kind of editorial multi-tasking ...

28 Apr 2011