THE BASIS POINT

Angry Fan Of YouTuber Hacks Wall Street Journal After It Rightly Called Him Out

 
 

This is absolutely wild … a fan of the YouTuber PewDiePie sabotaged a piece of WSJ sponsored content, changing it to read as an apology (see image above) a year after WSJ ran an article exposing how comfortable PewDiePie is with anti-Semitism.

Most notable that this attack hit a piece of Oracle-sponsored content. This means two things to me:

1. Either the hacker was looking for the easiest route into a WSJ post and a sponsored post was the path of least resistance, or

2. The hacker was savvy enough to know that their attack would not only cause a media stir, but also damage WSJ’s relationship to their advertiser.

Either way, it’s bad. If it’s the former, WSJ must upgrade its security. The latter, and WSJ is dealing with a dangerous foe who understands how to attack its livelihood. In the social influencer age, media orgs must fight off influencers (and their fans) who trade in blind aggression. But will orgs like WSJ actually fight if their bottom line is at stake? Check out the saga below.
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Reference:

PewDiePie Fans Hack The Wall Street Journal & Target Sponsored Content (The Verge)

Disney Severs Ties With YouTube Star PewDiePie After Anti-Semitic Remarks (WSJ)

 

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