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Hijacked Fox News Twitter Account Falsely Claims Obama Shot Dead

Posted by timothy on from the how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people dept.

Frankie70 writes with word of a Twitter-account hijacking that's raised eyebrows today, supplying a link to the account in question. From the Telegraph's account: "'The Twitter account of the American Fox News Politics team was compromised and used to falsely announce the death of the U.S. president. Hackers, who identified themselves as 'The Script Kiddies' and said they shared the spirit of prominent hacking group Anonymous, used the account to write: 'BREAKING NEWS: President @BarackObama assassinated, 2 gunshot wounds have proved too much. It's a sad 4th for #america. #obamadead RIP.'"

4 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. HOW? by sortius_nod · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is your corporate account. How does this happen?

    1. Re:HOW? by ricky-road-flats · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Take a breath, man, Jesus.

      I am not an american, I don't support either of your two parties. I made no comment on Obama, or any of the other news outlets. None are perfect, and I didn't say any were. However, in my eyes, what thankfully little I see of Fox News is the worst example of biased shrill fearmongering bullshit which twists facts, ignores common sense, and generates maximum anger, fear and hate - and leads to rants like yours, which so beautifully illustrates the problems that are making the US political system so badly uncompromising, reactive and broken.

      Whether you agree with Fox's agenda (and you cannot realistically deny they have one) or not, the fact is they fucked up on a matter of IT security here, and it takes down a peg or two, and I think that's a good thing, are enjoying it. I could hope that they might start to take themselves a little less seriously, but it's a little to much to ask.

  2. Why aren't they deleted yet? by bigjarom · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't understand why these tweets have not yet been deleted 6-7 hours after they were posted. Does Fox News not know you can delete tweets?

    1. Re:Why aren't they deleted yet? by forand · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They actually replaced an old tweet saying they had regained control of the account. Fox has also addressed the issue in mass media outlets Why haven't they addressed it on their account? Who knows.