Hacked McDonald's Twitter account has beef with Donald Trump
Social Cues: A now-deleted tweet from McDonald's corporate account had some choice words for the president. Could the Hamburglar be to blame?
Social Cues is our look at what is trending across social media.
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It appears somebody who accessed McDonald's corporate Twitter account Thursday has a beef with President Donald Trump.
At 9:16 a.m. ET, a tweet from @McDonaldsCorp blasted Trump as a "disgusting excuse of a President" and added "also you have tiny hands." The post was pinned on the account's feed for half an hour before it was deleted.
McDonald's said its account was hacked and it's still investigating the incident.
It's not the first time a major company's Twitter account has been hacked: Marvel, Netflix and the NFL have all been victims. In those cases, the hacks were a harmless message letting the users know the accounts had been compromised. A breach Wednesday plastered Nazi slogans all over Twitter in a social-media-fueled feud between Turkey and the Netherlands.
The unauthorized tweets show that corporations with millions of followers can serve as prime targets for hackers who are chasing their 15 minutes of fame before the posts are deleted.
Corporate Twitter accounts walk a thin line between reaching out to fans and looking too much like the "How Do You Do, Fellow Kids" meme. Wendy's Twitter account found success on social media for roasting people, but it's never gone as far as insulting the president.
McDonald's is trending on Twitter with more than 90,000 tweets about the company. People have been tweeting at McDonald's, offering to buy 12 McGriddles or 100 McNuggets for the post to go back up.
It was certainly a quick escalation from McDonald's previous tweets. Just seven minutes before the presidential diss, the company's posts encouraged customers to come back for breakfast and asked when another customer would come for a coffee date.
It's a real "whodunnit" on Twitter, as people are pointing to the dastardly Hamburglar as the hacking culprit. Others have pointed out that Grimace co-starred in a McDonald's commercial with Trump in 2002.
People on Twitter are also pointing out that the company's public relations chief is Robert Gibbs, a former press secretary and adviser in the Obama administration. Trump supporters are taking to Twitter to demand McDonald's apologize and are threatening a boycott.
It didn't take long for the memes to pop up on Twitter, with people resurfacing this photo of Trump eating McDonald's on a flight.
An "Alt. McDonald's" account has also popped up on Twitter, in the same spirit of those alt-"Resistance" accounts.
The anti-Trump tweet from McDonald's Twitter account comes amid news of the president's proposed budget cuts to 19 agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Endowment for the Arts and the State Department.
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