Hacked A.P. Twitter

Kun-Mao Chao (趙坤茂 )Department of Computer Science and

Information EngineeringNational Taiwan University, Taiwan

A note given in BCC class on April 24, 2013

A False Alarm

2Source: AP; The New York Times 4/23/2013

A Hacked Account

• The Twitter account of The Associated Press was hacked on Tuesday and erroneously sent out a message saying there had been explosions at the White House, injuring President Obama.

• Within a few minutes, Twitter suspended the account, and Julie Pace, the chief White House correspondent for The A.P., announced at a White House briefing that the account had been hacked.

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Clarification

• Jay Carney, Mr. Obama’s press secretary, confirmed that the president was unharmed.

• Editors at The A.P. soon followed with a statement saying that “The @AP twitter account has been hacked. The tweet about an attack at the White House is false. We will advise more as soon as possible.”

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted!

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 150 points when the news broke on Twitter — an indicator of traders’ presence on the social media platform — before immediately recouping the losses after it became clear that there had been no attack at the White House.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted!

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