There were red faces all round at cable TV news network Fox News today as hackers infiltrated one of the network’s Twitter accounts and ‘announced’ the assassination of US president Barack Obama.
At around 7am Irish time a tweet reading: “@BarackObama has just passed. The President is dead. A sad 4th of July, indeed. President Barack Obama is dead” appeared. This was followed by: “We wish @joebiden the best of luck as our new President of the United States. In such a time of madness, there’s light at the end of tunnel.”
The credibility of the ‘reports’ was immediately called into question as claims of the ‘shooting’ taking place in Iowa were quickly quashed by the ‘revelation’ that the President was actually at Camp David, safe, well and enjoying the holiday. Another givewaway was the total absence of coverage by other media outlets.
The hastag #obamadead quickly became a rallying point for national and international ridicule as the digerati rapidly copped on to the hoax.
The comedy value seems to have waned already, however, as global trending topics have returned to more appropriate 4 July fare of wishing goodwill to all Americans on their national holiday.
Fox News famous for its roster of firebrand commentators such as Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, has long been criticised for right-wing bias, making it a prime target for hackers intent on making a mockery of it’s tagline, ‘fair and balanced’.
The offending tweets had not been removed from the @foxnewspolitics feed at time of writing.
Niall Kitson
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers