Hacked AP Twitter Account Claims White House Bombed, Stock Market Takes A Big Dip
Earlier today the official account for the Associated Press gave everyone on Twitter a moment of distress with a post claiming that the White House had been bombed and President Obama was injured.
The account has been suspended, with the AP saying it was hacked:
The @ap Twitter account has been suspended after it was hacked. The tweet about an attack on the White House was false.
— AP Stylebook (@APStylebook) April 23, 2013
But in a display of just how powerful social media is in this digital age, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged briefly:
“@nickwoltman: Wow. RT @jaredbkeller: Dow tanked for a hot second after erroneous @ap tweet twitter.com/AmandaMLilly/s… Nice catch @amandamlilly”
— Francis Materi (@fran_the_man) April 23, 2013
An alarming, but thankfully brief, picture of what would have been.
In related news, White House spokesman Jay Carney reports that the President is in the White House and doing just fine. And that’s a big relief.
