The Onion, America's finest fake news organization, was the latest victim of cyber hacking on Monday when the Syrian Electronic Army took over its Twitter account to tweet a slew of anti-Israel messages.
Some of the tweets read:
"Israel denies forging new alliance with Al Qaeda: 'We were friends all along, so it can't be new' – IDF Spokesperson,"
UN's Ban Ki Moon condemns Syria for being struck by israel: "It was in the way of Jewish missiles"
"We only wish this one was a joke, but this is what we have to live through in #Syria."
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The New York Times received an email from a member of the group supporting Syria's embattled president, Bashar Al-Assad, stating they targeted the Onion due to one of their satirical articles positioned as a piece written by Al-Assad himself. The article was titled, "Hi, In The Past 2 Years, You Have Allowed Me To Kill 70,000 People."
"The Onion is a satire news organization and quite often is more trusted to reflect the news than the corporate media is known to,” a hacker under the handle "Th3 Pr0" wrote. "Recently they have published an article that savages Syria and its current circumstances. This hurt the feelings of many Syrians who relied on it to tell the truth in a funny way. We hoped that our effort to correct their news would draw attention to the fact that it was likely that an outside decision was involved in changing The Onion’s tune."
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"We hope people take it in good humor and understand our people’s suffering," the email added. “The Onion can do a much better job reporting the truth through its satire. Unfortunately even they seem to be biased.”
The Onion is one of many media outlets to be hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army since civil war broke out in the region in 2011. Human Rights Watch, NPR, CBS, the Associated Press, E! Online and the Guardian were all digitally infiltrated as a result of what the group considers to be one-sided coverage of the conflict.
The Onion has deleted the messages tweeted out to over 5 million followers on Monday afternoon, and responded with headlines poking fun at the incident, including one discussing its updated security measures.
"Onion Twitter Password Changed To OnionMan77," the site read."'That Ought To Do It,' Company Sources Confirm."
"We Were Going To Take Over The Onion Website, But It’s A Real Mess With All Those Ads," another headline, positioned as an article written by the Syrian Electronic Army, read.
The Onion did yet respond to TheWrap's request for comment, but it appears the fake news organization is taking the Twitter hack in good-humored stride.