Rick Perry Oversees America's Nukes. He Just Fell For A Basic Instagram Hoax.

The energy secretary was among a number of high-profile public figures caught out by a fake post.
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Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose department oversees America’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, is among a number of high-profile public figures who fell victim to an online hoax this week.

A fake, badly worded legal notice shared to the Republican former Texas governor’s Instagram account on Tuesday warned that the Facebook-owned platform was changing its terms of service to make all messages and photos public.

“Feel free to repost!!” Perry wrote, with the hashtag #nothanksinstagram.

Actors Judd Apatow, Julia Roberts, Rob Lowe and Julianne Moore, and singer-songwriter Usher, also were reportedly fooled by the fake post.

The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, confirmed the meme was “not true” on Twitter:

People pointed out the phony nature of the notice to Perry, or whoever operates his Instagram account, and two puzzling responses were posted:

The post remained on Perry’s @governorperry account as of Wednesday morning.

In 2017, Perry was duped into talking with a Russian comedian who he thought was Ukraine’s prime minister.

Trevor Noah, the host of Comedy Central’s late-night “The Daily Show,” offered this amusing take on the scam:

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