A rogue New York Post employee recently posted a series of explicit fake headlines about politicians, including President Joe Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and was fired later the same day.
“We must assassinate AOC for America,” read one of the phony headlines posted to the outlet’s Twitter account the morning of Thursday, Oct. 27.
In a now-deleted tweet, the Post first claimed that it had been hacked. But the outlet later told CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy the “vile and reprehensible content” had been posted by an employee, who was then fired.
Some headlines seemed to reflect extreme, warped versions of figures’ political views.
One headline quoted Christopher Rufo, a conservative known for activism against critical race theory, as saying “We must destory [sic] and imprison Union teachers.”
In another, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, known to be concerned about migrants crossing the southern border, said “I will order Border Patrol to start slaughtering illegals.”
But commenters noted that the fake headlines were possibly skewering the Post itself.
To make the tweet about assassinating Ocasio-Cortez, the employee had accessed the Post’s internal publishing system to republish an editorial about her and change its author to conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, according to the New York Times.
Other posts falsely attributed racist and violent statements to Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), the Republican running against incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul for governor of New York.
In a statement to the New York Times, a Hochul spokeswoman said the Post “has long fostered an ugly, toxic conversation on their front pages and social accounts, but these posts are more disgusting and vile than usual.”
