Last but not least: Cheers to Joe Biden, "our new president"
On the Fourth of July, hackers took over a Twitter account belonging to the U.S. news network Fox News and posted false reports about a deadly attack on President Barack Obama. In a subsequent tweet, they wished Joe Biden good luck in his role as «our new president.».
An initial tweet spoke of shots being fired at Obama in a restaurant in the state of Iowa, where the president was campaigning. Then came the "breaking news" that Obama was dead: two gunshot wounds had proved to be too many. And further: "It's a sad 4th of July for America." Finally, Vice President Joe Biden was also wished good luck in office as "our new president".
The broadcaster confirmed the attack early Monday morning. Hackers had sent out several malicious and false tweets claiming that there had been an assassination attempt on President Obama, the Fox News statement said. Of course, these reports are false and the President is spending the 4th of July holiday with his family. The station also expressed regret for any fears that may have been triggered by the tweets.
This story leads back to the old question: "If it wasn't written about in all the newspapers, did it really happen? And if it was written about, did it really happen?" Which, in plain English, means the reader should have asked himself: If it wasn't written about in any other American newspaper, how can it be true? But one could also ask: If Fox News hadn't cleaned up the story, how long would it have been before other media outlets picked up on the fictitious rumors?
Incidentally, a group called "Scriptkiddies" claimed responsibility for the hacker attack on the political news account @foxnewspolitcs, according to SDA.
