This story was reported for San Diego News Network on November 10, 2009.
At approximately 10 p.m. Monday, my Twitter account was hacked into. That’s right, for those who don’t follow me — the social media outlet, where millions of narcissistic folks share their bidness in 140 characters or less, let a non-Hoa person slide through in the login screen, to spam my dear followers.
I am so sorry.
But let me put some context into what happened Monday night. It was a long and interesting day for the political section at San Diego News Network, so by nightfall I was pleased to find myself in the comfort of my home, Snuggie and all, enjoying a peaceful, restful night. I was rocking to J.Lo’s greatest hits as I was completing my congressional article and completely zoned out from the rest of the world. I was focused.
After completing my first draft of the article, I checked my e-mail and that’s when I discovered the sobering fate of my Twitter account and the messages that had been sent to all my followers.
A flow of messages jammed my inbox from my Tweeps asking about the spam message I had sent out. My phone saw the same suffering with texts and missed calls from more concerned Tweeps.
Messages like, “What is that link?” “Did someone hack into your account?” and my personal favorite, “…your Twitter account is spamming harmful flies.”
And it was spreading vicious flies. My poor Twitter account to which I tweet my heart out with, was hacked.
I immediately changed my password and in an attempt to stop people from possibly clicking on a germy link, I tweeted warnings. I also tried to send all the followers personal apologies and warnings but Twitter caps the amount of direct messages one can send per day.
Ironically, hacker issues have been common, at least when you do a Google search on it. Probably the most infamous Twitter hacker incident happened to MSNBC’s headlines page.
Nonetheless, here is my on-the-record apology to all who suffered from my hacker: I’m sorry.
Sorry to everyone who follows me including: Judy Bernstein, the author of “They Poured Fire on us from the Sky;” SDNN lifestyle editor Joseph Peña, whose phone went bananas when he clicked on the link; Michael van der Galien, editor of the Dutch publication PoliGazette; Solana Larsen, editor of Global Voices Online; SDNN associate publisher Barbara Bry and all the people in Vietnam (who I don’t know but I think follow me because of my very Vietnamese name).
And sorry to the politicians, who have enough to deal with and don’t have time for spam but need to follow the political reporters for obvious reasons, including: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mayor Jerry Sanders, Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), Supervisor Pam Slater-Price… Councilmember Carl DeMaio, please continue video blogging for me!
My password has been changed and I hope it doesn’t happen again. I also sent an inquiry to Twitter’s public relations department for information.
Hoa Quach is the political editor for the San Diego News Network. Follow her on Twitter…. if you dare.