For most of us, push notifications are a necessary evil, the cost of being joined at the hip to our mobile phones. But when that necessary evil turns, well, actually quite evil, it’s time to take a step back.
On Tuesday night, Fast Company, a monthly business magazine, shut down its website after the site was commandeered by hackers who sent disgusting and racist notifications to iPhone users through the Apple News application, according to The Washington Post.
Followers of Fast Company on Apple News were sent two notifications that both read, “NIGGERS TONGUE MY ANUS. THRAX WAS HERE.”
As you would imagine, users were shocked and quickly shared the offensive updates on social media, wondering what the hell was going on.
Shortly after the breech, Fast Company tweeted that it was “investigating the situation” and subsequently suspended the Apple News feed and shut down the site entirely.
In response, Apple News also disabled the magazine’s feed in the app.
Late last night, the business magazine released a statement that read:
Fast Company’s content management system account was hacked on Tuesday evening. As a result, two obscene and racist push notifications were sent to our followers in Apple News about a minute apart. The messages are vile and are not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company. We are investigating the situation and have shut down FastCompany.com until the situation has been resolved.
Tuesday’s hack follows an apparently related hack of FastCompany.com that occurred on Sunday afternoon, when similar language appeared on the site’s home page and other pages. We shut down the site that afternoon and restored it about two hours later.
Fast Company regrets that such abhorrent language appeared on our platforms and in Apple News, and we apologize to anyone who saw it before it was taken down.