Fox News Twitter Account Hacked, Falsely Claims Obama Assassinated

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From the PlayStation Network, to the CIA and everything between, lots of websites are being hacked lately. Things took a serious turn for the worse when some mischievous hackers hacked the Twitter feed of News Corp’s Fox News Channel and (falsely) proclaimed that US President Barack Obama had been assassinated. Now, the US Secret Service has been tasked with investigating who hacked the account.

Early on the July 4^th holiday, the Fox News Twitter account used for political news (@FoxNewsPolitics) was compromised by hackers, and they quickly Tweeted that President Obama had been assassinated. Later, they added a second Tweet, saying something about Vice President Biden being sworn in as President. Although the internet community these days is particularly left-leaning and critical of Fox News, most quickly saw through the hoax and it became news. Fox News and Twitter both quickly confirmed that the account had been compromised and apologized for the attack.

Now, on Tuesday, ABC News is reporting that the US Secret Service will be investigating the hacking, and will determine if it’s a possible threat to the President. As our non-American readers may not know, the US Secret Service was historically an agency  that investigated counterfeiting and other crimes against American currency – but they have also always been tasked with the personal security detail of the President of the United States.

They are known to vigorously investigate any hint of the threat to the safety of the President. You may remember a story from a few months ago where a 9^th grade boy posted on Facebook that he was worried about President Obama following the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death – and the Secret Service interrogated him at school the next day.

Regardless, the President is safe, the Secret Service is on the case, and we now have Vice President Biden on Twitter – hopefully to make a few public gaffes and make us laugh.