The business and technology magazine Fast Company said Tuesday night that its Apple News account had been hijacked and that the hacker had used it bombard subscribers with racist notifications.
The alerts read, “N*****S TONGUE MY ANUS. THRAX WAS HERE.”
“Fast Company’s Apple News account was hacked on Tuesday evening. Two obscene and racist push notifications were sent about a minute apart. The messages are vile and not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company,” the publication’s said on Twitter. Thrax’s identity is unknown.
Apple News added: “An incredibly offensive alert was sent by Fast Company, which has been hacked. Apple News has disabled their channel.”
Fast Company said it had shut its entire website down in response “until we are certain the situation has been resolved.” The outlet added that Apple News itself had not been hacked, rather Fast Company’s content management system, which allows users to publish articles and push alerts.
“To clarify: Fast Company’s content management system (CMS) was hacked on Tuesday evening, which impacted our Apple News alerts,” the outlet tweeted.
Twitter was quickly flooded with screenshots of a vandalized Fast Company article whose headline has been altered to include the obscenities.
This is a developing story.