Violent and racist content that appeared on the New York Post's website and Twitter account Thursday morning were posted by one of the newspaper's own employees, a company spokesperson said.
The tweets, which were posted just after 9 a.m. and seen by BuzzFeed News, called for the murder of President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Others mentioned "slaughtering illegals," joked about New York Gov. Kathy Hochul being "rape[d] and batter[ed]," and called New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who is Black, a "fried chicken eating monkey."
Articles on the paper's website were tampered with as well. The headline of an op-ed about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was changed to "We must assassinate AOC for America," and its byline was edited to look like it was by right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro.
The offensive posts were deleted shortly after they went up, and the newspaper tweeted that they had been "hacked" and were "investigating the cause."
But an external hack was not, in fact, behind the tweets — it turned out to be a New York Post employee, a spokesperson for the paper later said.
The employee, who was not publicly identified, has been fired.
"The New York Post’s investigation indicates that the unauthorized conduct was committed by an employee, and the employee has been terminated," the spokesperson said. "This morning, we immediately removed the vile and reprehensible content from our website and social media accounts."