MTV And BET Hacked Or Publicity Stunt? Twitter Accounts Go Crazy After Burger King And Jeep Hacks

By Ian Kar | February 19 2013 4:31 PM

Just like Burger King on Monday and Jeep earlier Tuesday, the Twitter accounts for MTV and BET were allegedly compromised later in the day on Tuesday.

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The two Twitter accounts are both posting nonsensical content, similar to what the Burger King account tweeted when the company’s official account was hacked.

It seems like both of the MTV and BET Twitter accounts are somehow connected. Besides being both owned by Viacom, the MTV account changed its picture to an image of BET, and BET did the same thing, posting a picture of the MTV logo. The BET account has been adding the hashtag “#MTVHack” -- the same hashtag the seemingly-compromised MTV account has been using as well.

On Monday, Twitter suspended Burger King's Twitter account after it had been compromised for a little over an hour. By that time, “Burger King” had already become a Trending Topic on Twitter and the Burger King Twitter account had already gained over 30,000 followers. The company suffered from a very embarrassing and public PR problem, but Burger King managed to get control of the account back with Twitter’s help.

While the Burger King account was definitely compromised, it seems like the-supposed MTV hack may be a publicity stunt. Buzzfeed’s Ellie Hall noted that MTV Marketing Director Annie Schoening tweeted to pay attention to MTV’s Twitter account.

Everyone watch @mtv right now... #MTVHACK

— Annie Schoening (@Schoprah) February 19, 2013

A similar tweet was posted by JP Lespinasse, who manages BET’s social media division. He tweeted: “ ‘bout to have some fun on social w/ @mtv + @bet s/o to @kionsanders cc: @adamostrow.”

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The question is: Is this a planned attack against two Viacom-owned companies, or is this a unified publicity stunt to capitalize on the Burger King and Jeep hacks?

This story is developing so stay tuned for updates.

Here are some examples of tweets the MTV and BET accounts have been sending on Tuesday.