Racist hacking: Twitter CEO’s own account sends hateful tweets

The account of Twitter Inc Chief Executive Jack Dorsey was hacked on Friday afternoon, sending public tweets and retweets that included racial slurs and curses published to more than four million followers. 

Twitter’s communications team –  based in San Francisco in the United States – said in a tweet that it was aware that the account had been compromised and was investigating how the hacking occurred. But a subsequent tweet said, “The account is now secure, and there is no indication that Twitter’s systems have been compromised.”

One of the tweets claimed Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was innocent, while others contained racist comments against African-Americans and Jews.

There was also a tweet suggesting that a bomb had been placed at Twitter’s headquarters: “Intel is there’s a bomb at Twitter HQ”.

 It also shared a link to a server on gaming chat application Discord, though the server invitation link is no longer valid.

Shortly after the hack, the offensive tweets and retweets were deleted. Certain Twitter accounts named in the compromised tweets and retweets appeared suspended on Friday.

Friday’s incident comes as the social media firm has pledged to improve the civility of interaction on the platform and as Twitter continues to limit verbal abuse and hate speech, amid accusations of political bias.

Twitter shares fell less than one percent in after-hours trading following the hack.