Twitter Tells McDonald's Its Account Was Compromised

By Julie Jargon 

McDonald's Corp. on Thursday was notified by Twitter that its account was compromised after a message about President Donald Trump was posted from its corporate Twitter account.

The tweet, which read, "@realDonaldTrump You are actually a disgusting excuse of a President and we would love to have @Barack Obama back, also you have tiny hands" was "pinned" to the top of the official corporate account for about 20 minutes.

"We deleted the tweet, secured our account and are now investigating this," a McDonald's spokeswoman said.

The White House didn't immediately return a request for comment.

Twitter was abuzz following the post on Thursday, with some people calling for a boycott of the burger chain. "McDonald's Twitter" was among the social media site's trending topics. Others jokingly asked to see the president's McDonald's receipts. One person tweeted that the National Security Agency already has a suspect, below which he posted a photo of the Burger King mascot.

The burger chain mostly stays out of politics, declining to comment publicly on administration policies that could affect the restaurant industry, deferring comment to the industry's trade group. The company in 2015 hired Robert Gibbs, a former White House press secretary under President Obama, to be its global chief communications officer.

Social media is a new arena for McDonald's, which until recently didn't actively use twitter or Facebook.

Write to Julie Jargon at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 16, 2017 11:51 ET (15:51 GMT)

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