Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s account was hacked Friday.
Angela Lang/The Techy Trends
Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey’s account was hacked Friday, with the people responsible tweeting sexist, racist and anti-Semitic comments, as well as bomb threats.
The tweets began at around 12:45 p.m. PT Friday, and also urged people to get several hashtags trending. They were up for about 20 minutes before being deleted, and included shoutouts to other Twitter users.
Screenshot by Corinne Reichert/The Techy Trends
“Yes, Jack’s account was compromised. We’re working on it and investigating what happened,” Brandon Borrman, head of Twitter comms, tweeted at 1:03 p.m. PT.
When asked for comment, a Twitter spokesperson pointed to Twitter Comms’ account, which tweeted a similar statement. “We’re aware that @jack was compromised and investigating what happened,” it tweeted.
Twitter’s comms account then announced at 2:22 p.m. that Dorsey’s account had just been secured.
“The account is now secure, and there is no indication that Twitter’s systems have been compromised,” the tweet said.
The group behind the hack appears to call itself the Chuckling Squad and has reportedly been behind other recent Twitter hacks.
Twitter has been under pressure to respond faster to remove abusive content, as well as dealing with the spread of terror content, misinformation, fake news and deepfakes. The social media platform has been criticized for taking too long to remove such content.
First published at 1:10 p.m. PT on Aug. 30.
Updated at 2:22 p.m.: adds more detail; 2:30 p.m.: Twitter confirmed account now secure
