Boston Pizza Twitter account ‘locked down’

Boston Pizza has apologized after a Twitter account for its northern Alberta locations favourited two contentious tweets about South Africa.

Boston Pizza Northern Alberta said in a tweet Thursday it had “locked down” its account “as we have been informed that someone has accessed our account and liked a tweet that our company does not stand for.

“We sincerely apologize for this, and we are taking steps to ensure it cannot happen again.”

The tweets in question, one of which is from U.S. President Donald Trump, reference the “large scale” killing of white farmers in South Africa.

In the other tweet, a Twitter user said “whites are targeted in SA ... Fact,” claiming she knew several neighbours and family members who had recently been murdered.

The BostonPizzaNA account is primarily used as a platform for 67 restaurants in northern and central Alberta to advertise food specials and promotions. The company ’s first location opened in Edmonton in 1964.

Twitter user Cody Harvey pointed out the uncharacteristic “likes” Thursday morning.

Despite claims that such South African killings have surged in recent years, murders of farmers in the country are at a 20-year low, according to a report in the Guardian.

White nationalist groups have seized on the killings, characterizing them as a “white genocide.”

Forty-seven farmers were killed in 2017-18, according to statistics compiled by South African agricultural association AgriSA, the Guardian reported. During the peak of the violence in 1998, 153 people were killed.