Popular satire news site The Onion is the most recent website to have their Twitter account hacked.
The New York Times reports that Syrian hacker group Electronic Army is responsible for the hacking. The group is strong supporters Syrian’s President Bashar Al-Assad and the hacking comes after The Onion posted an article poking fun at the President, hacker Th3 Pro confirmed to the Times.
The article, Hi in the past 2 years you have allowed me to kill 70,000 People, reads as a letter from Assad.
One of the tweets posted by the group reads, “UN retracts report of Syrian chemical weapon use: Lab tests confirm it is Jihadi body odor.”
The tweets have since been deleted.
Th3 Pro tells The Times in e-mail, “The Onion is a satire news organization and quite often is more trusted to reflect the news than the corporate media is known to. Recently they have published an article that savages Syria and its current circumstances.”
Continuing, the e-mail states, “This hurt the feelings of many Syrians who relied on it to tell the truth in a funny way. We hoped that our effort to correct their news would draw attention to the fact that it was likely that an outside decision was involved in changing The Onion’s tune.”
Concluding the e-mail reads, “We hope people take it in good humor and understand our people’s suffering. The Onion can do a much better job reporting the truth through its satire. Unfortunately even they seem to be biased.”
The Times notes that the Electronic Army has targeted other media outlets who they claim are one-sided. Human Rights Watch, NPR, CBS, the Associated Press, E! Online and the Guardian.
Although The Onion is taking the hacking lightly, posting a humorous article entitled Onion Twitter Password Changed to OnionMan77 , Th3 Pro writes that this hacking is “It’s just the beginning.”
image: The Onion Twitter