Bus stop ‘eat your children’ poster was created by artist

A widely-seen post on X (formerly Twitter), which has also been shared on Facebook, contains images of a supposed government poster installed at a bus stop which apparently encourages people to eat their children in order to save money on meals. 

The poster says: “Eat. Your. Children. Save up to £30 per year on roast dinners. Visit GOV.UK/SaveCash. It all adds up.” The caption on the social media post says “On a Bus Stop in the UK !!! Disgraceful”, followed by the emoji for someone being sick. 

Unsurprisingly, this isn’t a real government advertising campaign. But while most of those commenting on the post on social media seem to have immediately realised the ad was satirical or played along with the joke, some appear to have genuinely questioned if it is real.

A Full Fact reader who contacted us said they had a "strong hunch" it was a spoof but asked us to check it out. Others on social media replying to the X post claimed they had searched the Gov.uk website for details of the campaign or asked to use the images to highlight food poverty. 

The images are in fact the creation of the artist Foka Wolf, who describes himself as a “misinformation machine” and someone who produces “information to confuse people with”. Poster versions are available for sale on the artist’s own website. 

The work of Foka Wolf has been the subject of a previous check by Full Fact. 

These latest images are part of a wider series of recent creations and copy the logo of the government’s genuine Help for Households campaign. 

We have written before about posts published online that were assumed to be genuine even though they were created as works of satire. 

Image courtesy of Koczot