Even by the standards of social media fiascos, this one’s a doozy. On Monday, Burger King’s official Twitter feed announced the chain had been sold to its rival and began posting pro-McDonald’s messages and tales of employee drug use.
The strange Twitter activity took place after hackers apparently took control of Burger King’s account and replaced its name and image with the McDonald’s logo. Here is a screenshot of what followers of @burgerking saw on Monday:
The blue checkmark beside the @burgerking name indicate that this is indeed Burger King’s official Twitter account. Other tweets included:
This is why we were sold to @mcdonalds! All of our employees crush and sniff percocets in the bathrooms =[ @dfnctsc twitter.com/BurgerKing/sta…
— McDonalds (@BurgerKing) February 18, 2013
It’s unclear who is behind the mischief but the tweets’ references to “lulz’ and “@youranonnews” suggest the hacker collective Anonymous is involved.
Meanwhile, regular Twitter users are having a merry time speculating on how this may have happened:
haha! re: j.mp/W018Vi : RT @cebsilver .@scottmonty "What was the account password?" SM Intern: "It was 'whopper.'" "You're Fired."—
(@jeffscott) February 18, 2013
It’s accepted as common wisdom for big brands to have an active presence on social media but this incident shows how things can go very wrong. Previous Twitter disasters involve McDonald’s buying a sponsored hashtag to promote “McDStories” only to see users tell tales of gross food and alleged animal cruelty.
As of early Monday afternoon Eastern Time, the Burger King account was still under control of the hackers.
Update: At 1:15 ET, Twitter said the account had been suspended. As Frank Reed notes in the comments below, the incident may not be all bad it’s given Burger King more publicity than it’s had in a long time. And, as a hacker account notes:
With @BurgerKing getting hacked they got a 30% rase in followers, remember to unfollow.—
Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) February 18, 2013
As for McDonald’s, the company offered this response:
We empathize with our @BurgerKing counterparts. Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking.—
McDonald's (@McDonalds) February 18, 2013
Probably gives BK more exposure than they have had in a long time. Only social media insiders will see this as a ‘disaster’.
Good point, Frank! It’s easy to forget most people are not on Twitter. You’re right that this may just amount to a bit of free publicity for Burger King
All this talk has me thinking about a Whopper for the first time in a long time!
Well said Frank. This is the latest example of a non-event that I’m using as a way of siphoning off the so-called social media experts who actually haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about.
Why is GigaOm allowing ads in the comment space?
Yeah, my first thought was that they probably hacked into their own account for the PR!
Reblogged this on Rational Arrogance and commented:
“The strange Twitter activity took place after hackers apparently took control of Burger King’s account and replaced its name and image with the McDonald’s logo.”
I guess that’s what we call a “MacHack”….
Reblogged this on The Central Scrutinizer and commented:
Where do you start with this one? Looks like someone and their boss (and their boss) are looking for a job.
Reblogged this on Insights from the Corner Cubicle and commented:
This hurts…
Really enjoyed that article. Found it rather amusing too! ;)
What loser follows a fast food chain on Twitter? Or… who cares about this non-story?
Social Media is future of internet. Hacking the twitter shows importance and impact of social media.
I wish just one of these news stories would give a better explanation than just “got hacked.” How did the perps get control of the account? Did they brute force, just a luck guess, got control of the e-mail account that is backstopped, get the password from a phishing attack? Come on Gigaom, do more than the other big news outlets.