ILLINOIS — (CNN) A tweet from McDonald’s verified Twitter account took aim at President Donald Trump on Thursday.
The tweet, which has been deleted, said: “@realDonaldTrump You are actually a disgusting excuse of a President and we would love to have @BarackObama back, also you have tiny hands.”
McDonald’s later said its account was “compromised” but has been secured.
The tweet was published at 9:16 a.m. and pinned to the top of the McDonald’s Twitter account page, before it was deleted about 20 minutes later.
It’s unclear who sent the tweet slamming Trump, but about an hour later, McDonald’s tweeted: “Twitter notified us that our account was compromised. We deleted the tweet, secured our account and are now investigating this.”
Twitter notified us that our account was compromised. We deleted the tweet, secured our account and are now investigating this.
— McDonald’s (@McDonaldsCorp) March 16, 2017
McDonald’s spokeswoman Becca Hary confirmed that tweet’s veracity, sending the same statement to CNNTech via email.
Twitter declined to comment, telling CNNTech via email: “We do not comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons.”
It’s unknown whether “compromised” means that McDonald’s Twitter account was hacked, or a current or former staffer with the login information went rogue.
But it isn’t the first time a company’s corporate Twitter account has been compromised. In a single week in 2013 alone, what appeared to be the same hacker or hackers took over both Burger King’s and Jeep’s Twitter accounts. The hackers changed Burger King’s profile photo to a McDonald’s logo, tweeting that the company had sold itself to its rival — in addition to tweets including obscene content. The following day, hackers took over Jeep’s account and said it had been sold to Cadillac.
More recently, on Wednesday, several high-profile Twitter accounts were hacked with images of the Turkish flag and anti-German and anti-Dutch messages including Nazi symbols. The verified accounts compromised included Amnesty International, Forbes and the Atlanta Police Department.
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