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Gross, Stupid: NBC News Twitter Hacked With Fake World Trade Center Attack Tweets
By
Jen Chung
Published Sep 9, 2011
Modified Sep 9, 2011
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By
Jen Chung
Published Sep 9, 2011
Modified Sep 9, 2011
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With the city on higher alert due to a credible, though unconfirmed, terrorist threat, the NBC News Twitter account was hacked by The Script Kiddies, who decided to send out Tweets such as "Breaking News! Ground Zero has just been attacked. Flight 5736 has crashed into the site, suspected hijacking. more as the story develops," "Flight 4782 is not responding, suspected hijacking. One plane just hit Ground Zero site at 5:47. #groundzeroattacked." and "This is not a joke, Ground Zero has just been attacked. We're attempting to get reporter on the scene. #groundzero attacked." before finally sending "NBCNEWS hacked by The Script Kiddies. Follow them". Now the NBC News Twitter account has been suspended.
The Script Kiddies were behind the Fox News Twitter hack this past summer which featured fake President Obama assassination Tweets the night before July 4th. It took hours for the Fox News Twitter account to be suspended, partly because of the time difference difference between NYC and San Francisco and partly because of the holiday weekend.
NBC News released a statement, "The NBC News twitter account was hacked late this afternoon and as a result, false reports of a plane attack on ground zero were sent to @NBCNews followers. We are working with Twitter to correct the situation and sincerely apologize for the scare that could have been caused by such a reckless and irresponsible act."
Tagged
fake tweets
fox news
ground zero
hack
nbc news
script kiddies
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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