(PresidentialWire.com)- On Thursday, media outlets and pundits pushed a fake story claiming that President Donald Trump’s Twitter account was hacked when a Dutch researcher guessed the password “Maga2020.”
JESUS!
If Donald Trump can’t protect his own Twitter account…
How can he protect our country?
Trump’s Twitter account hacked after Dutch researcher guessed password https://t.co/zRJxrjeDHj via @Yahoo
— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) October 22, 2020
Posting a link to a story from Volkskrant, The Daily Beast’s Harry Siegel said it was “past parody.”
Past parody: Trump’s Twitter password was “maga2020!” and he doesn’t have two-step verification set up up https://t.co/VzitdWQ4pM
— Harry Siegel (@harrysiegel) October 22, 2020
“Trump’s Twitter password was ‘maga2020!’ and he doesn’t have two-step verification set up,” he claimed, without having done any research whatsoever.
According to the story being shared, researcher Victor Gevers claims to have guessed the password on his fifth try.
“I expected to be blocked after four failed attempts,” he said. “Or at least would be asked to provide additional information.”
If Siegel and others who acted horrified by the news had done their research, they would have discovered that the story doesn’t actually hold up.
The Guardian reports that Twitter denied the report.
“We’ve seen no evidence to corroborate this claim, including from the article published in the Netherlands today,” Twitter said in a statement. “We proactively implemented account security measures for a designated group of high-profile, election-related Twitter accounts in the United States, including federal branches of government.”
So why did the media push a story even Twitter said wasn’t true? Perhaps because an election is less than two weeks away, and it’s a good story.
Gevers claimed that it was easy to access the president’s account because he wasn’t using two-factor authentication. And, while this story does not appear to be true, Gevers commands some authority on this after having previously gained access to Trump’s account in 2016. VN News reports that Trump’s password used to be “yourefired,” which made it easy for Gevers to guess it and access the account back when the president was a reality television star.
