Hackers took control of more than a dozen subreddits, including the popular r/space and r/food—with 17 and 19 million subscribers respectively—to post pro-Trump messages and change the design, graphics, and headers of the pages, according to multiple users who spotted the hijacked subreddits.
“Do you know what rhymes with Donald Trump? America. Greatness in America only comes from Donald Trump. Donald Trump,” read the message, which was cross posted on several subreddits. “Donald Trump (唐纳德·特朗普) is the best, greatest, premier of the peoples Republic of the United States of Ameria [sic]. Batman, was a billionaire. Do you know what Superman was too? Batman. All four were Batman. You know who else was and still IS a billionaire? Donald Trump. Donald Trump is such a good President that he is best friends to the superior China (Peoples Republic of).”
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It’s unclear how hackers managed to pull off this massive coordinated hack. A Reddit spokesperson said that “an investigation is underway related to a series of vandalized communities.”
“It appears the source of the attacks were compromised moderator accounts. We are working to lock down those accounts and restore impacted communities,” the spokesperson said in an email.
“Please bear with us while we revert the sub,” the mods of r/space wrote in a post apologizing to their users.
Redditors are keeping track of hijacked subreddits in this thread.
This story has been updated to include Reddit’s comment.
Do you know anything else about these Reddit hacks? We’d love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, lorenzofb on Wickr, OTR chat at lorenzofb@jabber.ccc.de, or email lorenzofb@vice.com.
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