According to Roger Yu at USAToday, the drama — which
unfolded within an hour and sank the stock market by 143 points before it
rebounded — is yet another reminder that news agencies' Twitter accounts are
indispensable but occasionally unwieldy tools ultimately controlled by a third
party.
The official AP account tweeted early Tuesday afternoon that
the White House was attacked and President Obama was injured. Six minutes
later, the same account confirmed that it was "a bogus tweet."
The AP also subsequently confirmed that its account was
hacked, and AP reporter Mike Baker told his followers on Twitter that it was a
result of a phishing e-mail, in which the culprit tries to get personal information
under false pretenses.
The Syrian Electronic Army, which supports President Bashar
al-Assad, later took credit for hacking the AP account.
The same group also reportedly hacked into BBC Weather's
Twitter account earlier this year and posted several political messages related
to Syria .
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