After Sean Hannity’s Twitter is hacked, fans blame “Deep State” conspiracy
Sean Hannity (Credit: Jeff Malet, maletphotos.com)
Radio host and Fox News fixture Sean Hannity had his Twitter account hacked over the weekend, leading it to be temporarily suspended by the service. His fans, however, suspected something far more sinister: That their hero had been banned at the behest of the secretive and all-powerful “Deep State.”
Their conclusions were based in part on the fact that Hannity’s account had posted a junk tweet during the time it was compromised which read “Form Submission 1649 | #Hannity.”
With all the conspiracy theories that Hannity has been hyping lately, it was no surprise that the nonsensical tweet and his sudden suspension almost immediately became a hot topic among fans of “The Storm” conspiracy theory. None of them seem to have considered that publicly censoring a political commentator with a nationally syndicated radio show and a nightly cable news program without explanation would go unnoticed.
https://twitter.com/IWillRedPillYou/s...
https://twitter.com/alexhamilton74/st...
https://twitter.com/Amish_Frog_Guy/st...
"Sean Hannity's Twitter" #FormSubmission1649 TWITTER needs to provide an answer now as to why the most watched & listened to political commentator in the USA for the last 25 years has no account #Twitler #maga pic.twitter.com/FSCFjnzJ8H
— RedNationAlive2 (@rednationalive2) January 27, 2018
Hannity's #FormSubmission1649 tweet, which has resulted in the suspension of his account, was reference to power struggle within English Parliament, in years after English Civil War, to try King Charles I for high treason. Hannity was using it to send a mesage
— Robert Albo (@Bob02911) January 27, 2018
Jerome Corsi, a fringe journalist known for��promoting��the “birther” conspiracy theory, told his Twitter followers what was going on:
Hannity was attacked by DEEP STATE for posting #FormSubmission1649 – a reference suggesting BARACK OBAMA and HILLARY CLINTON guilty of TREASON. #QAnon #Qanon8chan warns DEEP STATE in panic will attack conservative libertarian red-pilled journalists. https://t.co/CEoDkojgJ2
— Jerome Corsi (@jerome_corsi) January 27, 2018
Even WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was once a leftist but has since morphed into a Fox News fanboy, expressed his concern:
The most watched TV host in the U.S., @SeanHannity has his Twitter account (3.3 million followers) mysteriously disappear after tweeting "Submission Form 1649" https://t.co/jIw0Lq5K1m pic.twitter.com/Op3b2h24Zu
— Julian Assange ��� (@JulianAssange) January 27, 2018
Despite the fervid imaginations of his fans, Hannity’s account access was soon restored. In a public statement, Twitter confirmed that Hannity had been hacked.
���While we normally do not discuss individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons, we have permission from the account owner to confirm that account was briefly compromised. We are working with the owner to restore access,��� the company said in a statement.
Hannity���s access was soon back to normal. He did not bother to tell fans what had happened, however.
I���m baaaccckk… a lot to say- Thanks for the support all you deplorable, irredeemables. Can���t get rid of me that easy. Too much work to do exposing #deepstategate—Monday���s a big day���tick tock.
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) January 28, 2018
Hannity is one of several cable news pundits who have had their Twitter accounts compromised in recent weeks. Security research company McAfee disclosed last week that the hackings appear to be the work of a private Turkish group calling itself Ayyildiz Tim,��which has��been using��compromised��accounts for their own propaganda purposes.
���Once the accounts were compromised, the attackers direct-messaged the account contacts with propaganda for their cause or with a link to convince them to click on a phishing site that would harvest the Twitter credentials of the victim,�����Ayyildiz Tim��members��Christiaan Beek and Raj Samani wrote in a blog post.
According to BuzzFeed, both liberal and conservative American commentators have been targeted, including former Fox anchor Greta Van Susteren, and Eric Bolling, CNN host Brian Stelter, New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi, and NBC reporter Ken Dilanian.
Once compromised, several of the hacked accounts have posted images purporting to show screen captures of direct messages sent and received from President Donald Trump.
