Twitter Tells McDonald's Its Account Was Compromised -- Update

By Julie Jargon 

McDonald's Corp. said on Thursday it was notified by Twitter Inc. that its account was compromised, after a message about President Donald Trump was posted from the burger chain's 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 early Thursday morning.

Not long after, a McDonald's spokeswoman said the company deleted the tweet and secured its account and was investigating the incident. Later in the day a spokesperson said: "Based on our investigation, we have determined that our Twitter account was hacked by an external source. We took swift action to secure it, and we apologize this tweet was sent through our corporate McDonald's account."

The White House didn't respond to a request for comment. A Twitter spokesman said the social-media site doesn't comment on individual accounts "for privacy and security reasons."

Twitter was abuzz following the post, with some people calling for a boycott of the burger chain. "McDonald's Twitter" was among the 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.

McDonald's 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 18:07 ET (22:07 GMT)

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