The New York Post says a rogue employee was responsible for racist, violent, and sexually explicit headlines targeting politicians from President Biden to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday. Readers of the Post's website and Twitter account awoke to fake headlines calling for assassinations of those politicians as well as Biden's son, Hunter, reports the Guardian. Other headlines claimed New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin had made racist comments about New York City Mayor Eric Adams and vowed to force himself on Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul.
The Post regained control of its website and Twitter account, which counts 2.8 million followers, "relatively quickly," per the Guardian. CNBC reports the website was operating as usual by midmorning. The publication announced it was investigating a hack before blaming "unauthorized conduct" by an employee who was then fired. The individual who made the posts identified themselves as "Thrax," a handle used in the recent Fast Company hack, which saw racist notifications sent to Apple News users.
"We immediately removed the vile and reprehensible content from our website and social media accounts," a rep said. Onlookers not only criticized the hack but the Post's overall conduct. A rep for Hochul said the publication "has long fostered an ugly, toxic conversation on their front pages and social accounts, but these posts are more disgusting and vile than usual," per CNBC. Philip Lewis, senior front page editor at the Huffington Post, said "this looks like NY Post normally so I kept on scrolling." (More New York Post stories.)
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