Buffalo Wild Wings Twitter Account Allegedly Hacked With Racist Messages
Buffalo Wild Wings found itself in hot water after racist messages appeared on its Twitter account on Friday night. The messages included the use of the “n” word and the word “c**.” One of the tweets also called out another fast-food franchise: Wendy’s. As Daily Beast reports, the tweets were quickly taken down but not before users took screen-shots and shared them.
As you can imagine, people soon started making jokes about the tweets. A couple of users quipped that it seemed like Roseanne Barr had gotten a job working as a social media manager at the restaurant chain. Barr recently got the reboot of her classic sitcom canceled after she tweeted a slew of racist messages recently that targetted Obama presidential aide, Valerie Jarrett.
Others speculated that perhaps one of the social media interns had quit their job in a blaze of glory or more likely, notoriety.
Fortune reports that the tweets were on the Buffalo Wild Wings account for 20 minutes before they were removed. At this point, the identity of the hacker is still unknown. Their means for hacking the account is also unclear. There’s also no word yet on whether the casual dining chain used two-factor authentication, a cyber-security mechanism for securing Twitter accounts.
But, as has become the usual response from companies in this situation, Buffalo Wild Wings has issued an apologetic statement in the wake of the Twitter hack.
“Buffalo Wild Wings’ Twitter account was hacked,” the statement reads. “We’re sorry that our fans had to see those awful posts, which obviously did not come from us. We are in touch with our Twitter representatives and will pursue the appropriate action against the individuals involved.
While the Twitter hack is undoubtedly an embarrassment for the company, this isn’t the first time that a large enterprise has been hacked. As Fortune notes, tech-savvy CEOs like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and former Twitter head-honcho Dick Costello have had their accounts breached. McDonald’s Twitter account was also compromised in 2017 when a hacker sent out a tweet which insulted Donald Trump, calling him “disgusting.”
Buffalo Wild Wings' Twitter gets hacked, posts string of racist and vulgar messages: https://t.co/51EvolmaYv pic.twitter.com/CtXAkszox2
— KTRE News (@KTREnews) June 2, 2018
Buffalo Wild Wings is a casual dining and sports bar chain with restaurants in the United States, Mexico, Canada, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and India. The franchise is owned by Arby Restaurant Group, a conglomerate which has since been reborn as Inspire Brands.
According to Fortune Magazine, Inspire Brand’s three restaurant chains, Buffalo Wild Wings, Arby’s, and R Taco, own close to 5,000 restaurants, and earned more than $7.6 billion in 2017.
