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. This is 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.
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