The New York Submit on Thursday stated an worker was accountable for posts on its web site and Twitter account that included racist, violent and sexually express headlines about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and President Joe Biden.
The posts have been eliminated shortly thereafter, and the News Corp.-owned New York tabloid newspaper’s web site was working as typical by midmorning. The Submit is likely one of the high newspapers primarily based on its circulation, and one of the vital visited information web sites, the Press Gazette reported in 2021 and 2022, respectively. It has 2.8 million followers on Twitter.
“The New York Submit’s investigation signifies that the unauthorized conduct was dedicated by an worker, and the worker has been terminated,” a spokesperson stated in an announcement Thursday. “This morning, we instantly eliminated the vile and reprehensible content material from our web site and social media accounts.”
The spokesperson earlier Thursday stated the posts have been the results of a hack and an investigation was underway.
The headlines appeared with pictures however hyperlinks that did not result in articles. Along with violent and express headlines focusing on Biden and his son Hunter and Ocasio-Cortez, there was additionally a racist headline concerning New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams and a publish focusing on unionized academics.
Representatives for the president and Ocasio-Cortez did not instantly reply to requests for remark.
New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin and incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul have been additionally talked about in express headlines as a part of the hack.
“The New York Submit has lengthy fostered an unpleasant, poisonous dialog on their entrance pages and social accounts, however these posts are extra disgusting and vile than typical,” a Hochul consultant stated Thursday. “The New York Submit wants to instantly clarify how this reprehensible content material was made public. Whereas the Submit has made its preferences very clear within the New York Governor’s race, there is no such thing as a room for this violent, sexist rhetoric in our politics. We demand solutions.”
A consultant for Zeldin did not instantly reply to remark.
“These vile, racist, and sexist feedback don’t have any place in public discourse, even by these unlawfully hacking a Twitter account,” stated the press secretary for New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams, who was additionally focused in a racist headline.
Automattic, the proprietor and operator of WordPress VIP, the content material administration system that permits publishing to the New York Submit website, stated it would not “touch upon energetic investigations,” nor converse on behalf of the Submit.
Final month, U.S. media publication Quick Firm shut down its web site for roughly per week after hackers gained entry to its website and despatched out “obscene and racist” push notifications to Apple Information customers.
On the time, Quick Firm said on Twitter its content material administration system was hacked and impacted its Apple Information alerts. The corporate suspended its web site instantly. It later stated it retained a world incident response and cybersecurity agency to research the matter.
– CNBC’s Stefan Sykes and Jack Stebbins contributed to this text.
