Bogus tweet targets Ardern

A fake Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce Twitter account has been shut down after anti-Labour messages were sent from the page.

On Friday, chief executive Mark Futter said a ‘‘disgruntled’’ service provider was at the bottom of a malicious tweet disparaging Labour leader Jacinda Ardern sent out from a Twitter account labelled as belonging to the organisation.

Futter said he went to the police on Friday morning after being alerted to the tweet’s existence about 7pm on Thursday.

The tweet included a photo of Ardern alongside a quote saying she had never had ‘‘a real job’’, and finished with the tagline: ‘‘Let’s destroy NZ’s primary producers’’.

Futter said the account was not linked to the chamber. ‘‘We mainly use Facebook and LinkedIn.

‘‘We had the links broken [Thursday] night. The Twitter account is not a chamber account and we’ve worked out who was behind it.’’

He said it was a disgruntled IT service provider, not an employee or chamber member, who set up the account about a year ago. The culprit had access to their website and was able to link the Twitter account to the chamber’s website and vice versa, giving the account the appearance of legitimacy.

‘‘Call it hacking, trolling, whatever,’’ he said. ‘‘No person in their right mind working for an organisation would post that.’’

After the post was tweeted, it garnered dozens of angry responses online.

Futter said the person who set up the account had an ‘‘axe to grind’’ against the chamber.

‘‘His values and his delivery didn’t match what we like to see in a business environment so we had a parting of the ways.’’

He also apologised to Ardern for the error. He had been in touch with Twitter to try and remove the account. The account has since been suspended by the social media company. Futter said the matter was now with police.

Labour MP Trevor Mallard, who is a member of the chamber of commerce, had tweeted in disgust at the original tweet, before sending out another message in support of the chamber.

‘‘There’s been a degree of naivety in the Chamber not noticing there was a Twitter account [linked to its name] but it appeared there was no malice involved in their part at all,’’ he said.

Lower Hutt councillor Campbell Barry said the Twitter account had been operating for 18 months and wanted to know why it was linked to the official web page for so long. ‘‘It seems like someone’s dropping the ball,’’ he said.

He called it ‘‘negligence’’ on the part of the Chamber of Commerce for allowing the account to operate for so long.

He said the council provided $200,000 a year to the organisation and he was concerned about the impact the situation would have on Hutt businesses.