Twitter accounts are hacked every day, and even some celebrities and news organizations have felt the sting of having false statements posted from their accounts. Today, the Internet had a few seconds of panic as the Associated Press Twitter page posted the false news of an attack on the White House.
Lots of Twitter users re-tweeted the AP message, "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured" early this afternoon. Of course, that news story was false and soon after it was posted, Twitter temporarily suspended the AP account but not before the AP posted the message, "The tweet about an attack at the White House is false. We will advise more as soon as possible.”
MarketWatch.com reports that stock prices took a nose dive for a few seconds before quickly recovering after it was clear that the AP's Twitter page was hacked. This past weekend, two Twitter accounts owned by CBS News, 60 Minutes and 48 Hours, were also temporarily suspended after hackers got into both accounts and posted up false messages.
Hopefully this is not the start of a new trend as even hacked messages on Twitter can have a huge impact on the world depending on both the source and the message itself.
Source: MarketWatch | Image via Twitter
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