Fox News's hacked Twitter feed declares Obama dead

The Guardian ^ | 7/4/11

[markomalley]

Rogue 4 July tweets on TV news channel's politics service go viral but Fox News is apparently back in control

Fox News has apparently fallen victim to hacking, with its politics Twitter feed repeatedly announcing President Barack Obama had been shot dead.

@foxnewspolitics began tweeting the information to its 33,000 followers at about 2am local time, with the posts rapidly being shared around the internet.

The rogue tweets appeared to begin after the account sent a message saying Fox had just "regained full access to our Twitter account".

The following tweets all related to the supposed death of Obama, with some posts being very specific about the president's injuries.

"@BarackObama has just passed. The President is dead. A sad 4th of July, indeed. President Barack Obama is dead," came the first tweet. The string of messages continued:

"@BarackObama has just passed. Nearly 45 minutes ago, he was shot twice in the lower pelvic area and in the neck; shooter unknown. Bled out", and then: "@BarackObama shot twice at a Ross' restaurant in Iowa while campaigning. RIP Obama, best regards to the Obama family."

Whatever the hoaxer's identity, they do not appear to have been entirely web-savvy. The first three posts revealing the president's death were directed to the @BarackObama Twitter feed, meaning only those following both accounts would have seen the messages.

[Liberty Valance]

Hackers. Is there anything they don't know?

[CyberAnt]

Good grief!! Anybody with an ounce of brains knows that ALL MEDIA OUTLETS have pre-written obituaries on presidents, congress people, or famous people of all kinds and descriptions.

It’s a part of the media preparation to be ready at a moment’s notice to inform the public about a famous person who died.

There’s nothing untoward about it .. it’s standard practice and I don’t see any reason why “twitter” messages would not also be available for the purpose of informing people of a famous person’s death (since twitter has become such a convenient method of informing people of important information).

Also, you have to consider the source .. the “Guardian” is not now, nor has it ever been, friendly to the conservative movement.

[tophat9000]

Whoever did this is a stupid numb nut... oddly because they hacks fox I say they are more likely to be of the left but who knows?

[Apparatchik]

Here was the plan: 1) Announce the death of Obama by Twitter. 2) Watch 4th of July patriotic folks and try to videotape or camera phone conservatives cheering the death of Obama. 3) Use the images to harm the Tea Party and support Obama’s reelection. It wouldn’t work because Tea Party types don’t behave like that. However, the Liberals don’t know that. They try to catch us in a bad light and this was their ticket. I wouldn’t be surprised if some Obama supporter inside Fox did the twitter.

You are the first in with a theory that matches my own. When I read the news about the hacking, my first thought was "Probably some Liberal activist group or the Daily Kos/Media Matters/Code Pink or MSNBC trying to get Conservatives to tweet back with cheers about the death of the President, in order to "out" them by tracing back the tweets.

But, is it not possible for someone else to have done this- someone with expanded powers for tracing threat to the President?

You are 100% correct in noting that all Americans, Conservatives and Tea Partiers included, would have seen this as national tragedy and as far I know, no one has taken the bait.

[Mears]

I’ve been out and about all day and this is the first I heard of it——2:00PM EDT.

[a fool in paradise]

The DemocRats think that American conservatives receive their marching orders from John Kerry endorsing NewsCorp. Some Leftist hackers probably think they can throw the 2012 election by pushing forth phony memes on Fox’s twitter account.

[gitmo]

This could be taken as a threat to the President.

How so? It wasn't a threat when Wikipedia reported Rush's death.

[tophat9000]

Funny...note that one lib guy talking about doing some work for his father because his father really needed it done?...He CHARGED his OWN Father?...

[Monorprise]

“”President Joe Biden.”

Now that is a scary looking sentence is it not?”

Somehow less scary then President Obama. At least we know the Government will be run slightly more competently.

[arrogantsob]

A bunch of idiots burning down their own neighborhoods is not “Civil War”. And attacks outside the idiots own neighborhoods would not go too well for the idiots considering the fact that there are millions of non-idiot Americans who are armed and know how to use their arms.

[TankerKC]

Anyone who read those posts should have know they were a hoax.

[nina0113]

Politideth is CHARGING his Dad MONEY to help him? What a jerk.

[gitmo]

Spaceball password scene.

[Moose Burger]

Only thing needed is either the account’s password (easy enough to fetch from the line if it’s not encrypted through an https:// address - or from the coctel napkin where some moron wrote it up). Or also through compromising something called OAuth, a protocol that allows some apps (for example in a phone, that could have been stolen) to post without a password. Several ways, actually.

[MaxMax]

And when it’s found out to be a Radical Leftist who did this the MSM will look the other way.

[gitmo]

Why did they pick Fox? Why not the obvious leftist media, CBS, ABC, MSNBC... Do they not they have Twitter feeds also?

My guess is they cracked Fox's password first.

[rlmorel]

Democrats.

[rlmorel]

Heh, total camp, but I love it.

[Moose Burger]

“Why did they pick Fox?”

Since Fox only goes with the party line about 80% of the time, it has won a reputation between the moronic masses of being “dominated by the right (whatever that means)”. The “sons of the revolution”, teenagers that eat propaganda daily at breakfast and believe Palin is dumber than Bush and things like that, hate Fox with a passion. They’ve been indoctrinated to believe it’s not a real news outlet and that it must be destroyed or the sky will fall in pieces.

[rlmorel]

I will have to be honest and say I wrote that particular segment of that post with an eye to tweaking the noses of Democrats more than to be ideologically factual...:)

If I were striving for more honest dialogue rather than to inflame people I detest, I would say that the Democrats of 1960 and before were far to the right of many we see in power today, except that in general, they were STILL Statist, Socialist, Communist sympathizers. Problem is, THEY wouldn’t have a problem with that!