Minister says his Twitter account was hacked
Incident comes as Washington Post columnist said he once again tricked Twitter to create a phoney verified account for Democratic Senator Ed Markey
Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has said his Twitter account was hacked after it was used to post a series of offensive messages about ethnicity, sexuality and gender identity.
According to Heaton-Harris, someone temporarily gained access to his account and posed some "deeply unpleasant stuff".
The minister subsequently regained control of his account and removed the posts.
His team said they were working with the social media platform to resolve the issue.
"Why are black people so poor?" read one of the posts on Heaton-Harris's account.
Another suggested that the lawmakers were planning to enact a new law that will see "all transgenders and homosexuals serve 10 years behind bars."
The Conservative MP for Daventry said he "can only apologise" for the incident.
The incident comes after Gillian Keegan, the education secretary in the cabinet, also had her Twitter account hacked during holidays.
During that time, her account was used to post a series of tweets to promote cryptocurrencies.
Twitter Blue still open to fake accounts
These incidents occur at a time when many people, including politicians, are concerned about Twitter's new Blue subscription feature, which enables anybody to purchase a verified account for $7.99.
CEO Elon Musk suspended the service due to mass impersonations, but relaunched it last month, claiming it was updated with better security measures.
When Musk took over Twitter in October, he planned to change the verification procedure that granted verified checkmarks to celebrities, government leaders, established news sites, and journalists. Instead, he preferred to allow customers to purchase verification via Twitter Blue.
The change caused confusion among users and was immediately jumped upon by pranksters and peddlers of misinformation. In November, multiple bogus accounts purporting Insulin manufacturer Eli Lilly made fake claims that led to a steep decline in the stock price of the pharmaceutical firm.
The platform restarted the service last month and claimed to have solved the flaws that caused chaotic episodes on the platform.
But on Thursday, Washington Post columnist Geoffrey Fowler said he was once again able to trick Twitter, creating a phoney verified account for Democratic Senator Ed Markey.
Fowler said that, even with Twitter's updated and enhanced authentication mechanism, his experiment demonstrated how simple it is to trick the platform and its users. Senator Markey gave him permission to use his name for the fake account.
After altering the username of an outdated, inactive account belonging to one of his colleagues, Fowler created an account with the username @SenatorEdMarkey. He linked the fake account to a temporary mobile number he purchased from T-Mobile for $15.
Twitter has since suspended the account.
"Elon Musk said he would fix Twitter's problem with impostors. The blue check mark on my fake US senator suggests he still has a long way to go," Fowler wrote in his report.
This is the second time that Fowler was able to trick Twitter at impersonating the senator.
The senator expressed his displeasure and called Musk's management of the verification mechanism as "absolute joke."
"It's an absolute joke that Elon Musk, who prides himself on being a tech entrepreneur, can't implement a functioning verification regime — except users aren't laughing," Markey said.
"Twitter's current leadership has failed to safeguard the platform from misinformation, failed to provide answers to my simple questions regarding their anti-fraud protocols, and failed to demonstrate an appreciation for the role that their platform plays in our democracy," he added.