@BurgerKing Proclaims Chain Sold to McDonald's

Twitter page gets McDonald's logo, Fish McBites image, in hack
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 18, 2013 1:25 PM CST
@BurgerKing Proclaims Chain Sold to McDonald's
This frame grab taken Monday, Feb. 18, 2013, shows what appears to be Burger King's Twitter account after it was apparently hacked.    ((AP Photo))

Twitter has suspended Burger King's account ... at Burger King's request, after an apparent hack today, reports the AP. Things got wacky just after noon Eastern time: The fast-food company's Twitter picture was changed to a McDonald's logo, the background picture changed to McDonald's new Fish McBites product, and the bio changed to declare, "Just got sold to McDonald's because the whopper flopped."

Some posts from the account contained racial epithets, references to drug use, and obscenities. Among the tweets: "if I catch you at a wendys, we're fightin!" and "Try our new BK Bath Salt!" 99% MDPV! Buy a Big Mac, get a gram free!" The company plans to post a statement on Facebook later today to apologize, especially for the offensive posts. It hopes to have the account back up soon. Buzzfeed makes three observations:

  1. Anonymous appears to be taking credit.
  2. If you're going to hack someone, a national holiday may be the time to do it: It took an hour and 15 minutes for the account to come down.
  3. Hacks aren't all bad: @BurgerKing racked up more than 30,000 new followers during those 75 minutes.
(More Twitter stories.)

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