New Delhi: The official English and Hindi Twitter accounts of the Government of India’s public relations arm Press Information Bureau (PIB) were apparently hacked Sunday, with several Japanese and some pornographic tweets being ‘liked’ by the handle.
However, a senior official from the PIB told ThePrint that due to a “technical issue”, some tweets were automatically getting liked from the PIB’s handles.
“We have again taken this problem up with Twitter and this is being checked,” the official said. “The same problem was reported a few months ago, even then we had reported this to Twitter.”
Also read: Modi govt moves to make PIB its ‘influencer in chief’ on social media
Liked tweets include one on US Democratic debate
The two accounts ‘liked’ a wide variety of tweets, including one tweet on the Democratic Party’s presidential debate in the US, which stated: “#DemDebate 2020 remind me of my favorite film, Frozen: mayor Pete is like the snow, Bernie is like that cold forest, Bloomberg is like the icicles, and warren is the smash hit song ‘do you want to build a snowman’.
A number of users noticed the PIB accounts’ activity.
https://twitter.com/TheAkashKharat/status/1241613921728913409
What's wrong with @PIB_India
Liked a nudity tweet photo…??? @ANI @TheDeshBhakt https://t.co/pfiKibWYWe pic.twitter.com/ZEbER1gof0— ସତ୍ୟବ୍ରତ ସାହୁ Satyabrat Sahoo (@ssatyabrat11) March 22, 2020
There are lots of tweets which adultery video, messages, pictures are liked by @PIB_India
You are in public domain should not do like this @MIB_India @PrakashJavdekar
We feel that Your habits will not be change you are giving wrong message to the people
Please take the action pic.twitter.com/0VVilpdWiO
— PRASHANT RANA ?? プラシャント・ラナ (@PMRANAJI) March 22, 2020
Sam Jawed, co-founder of fake news-busting website AltNews, wrote: “Here is something interesting to do during #JantaCurfew – Go to @PIB_India handle and check the tweets they have liked. Thank me later.”
Here is something interesting to do during #JantaCurfew – Go to @PIB_India handle and check the tweets they have liked. Thank me later.
— SamSays (@samjawed65) March 22, 2020
Meanwhile, Karthik Srinivasan, author of the book ‘Be Social: Building Brand YOU’, advised that employees should use different browsers to operate personal social media handles and official handles.
He wrote: “Always use different browsers to operate personal social media handles and official/corporate/work-related social media handles. For instance, personal handles on Chrome and official handles on Microsoft Edge or Firefox.”
His tweet came with screenshots of the posts that the PIB handle liked.
Always use different browsers to operate personal social media handles and official/corporate/work-related social media handles. For instance, personal handles on Chrome and official handles on Microsoft Edge or Firefox. pic.twitter.com/ETmSFUPwsS
— Karthik (@beastoftraal) March 22, 2020
Also read: Twitter antakshari, composing songs — how ministers & celebs are observing janata curfew