Stampede claims Twitter ‘hacked’ over ‘offensive’ post

Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede officials are conveying apologies after a tweet criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was posted to the Stampede’s official Twitter account Sunday.

The tweet — a reply to Trudeau’s July 29 tweet about Canada’s involvement in a U.S.-proposed electric vehicle tax incentive — read; “You are the worst prime mister this country has even seen! You are destroying this countries economy. Step down before we end up like Germany after WW1.”

The tweet was deleted shortly after being posted and replaced with a statement from the Stampede which reads; “We would like to apologize for the tweet earlier that has since been deleted. Our account was hacked and the post did not express the views or values of our organization. We are deeply sorry for the offensive content of that post and are currently investigating the breach.”

When contacted by the News on Monday, general manager Ron Edwards, again, expressed apologies on behalf of the Stampede and confirmed his team is looking into the situation, but have not turned up any information as of yet.

“It’s disappointing,” Edwards told the News. “I found out last night. My social media staff member phoned me right away to let me know. By then, she had already taken it off, and had apologized on (Twitter), and said that this is not our view (and) it was absolutely nothing to do with us.”

Edwards says this is not the first time MHE&S has faced issues online. Earlier this year, several fraudulent websites began selling tickets to MHE&S events, at a higher price and, often, in U.S. currency.

“The first time we saw our tickets online being sold for five to 10 times the amount of what we were selling them for, I thought to myself, ‘Oh, my God, how do you deal with this?’” said Edwards.

Edwards says he and his team have worked to prevent the spread of misinformation online — efforts he says will continue following Sunday’s situation.

“This is something, I think, everybody has to be aware of now,” said Edwards. “I guess we’re just one of the unfortunate ones. It’s sad.”