Hackers hijack Mexican chain’s Twitter and post homophobic slurs

Illustrated rainbow pride flag on a pink background.

Mexican restaurant chain Chipotle has apologised after Twitter hackers posted homophobic, racist and anti-Semitic tweets from its account.

Early on Sunday, hackers took control of the company’s US account @ChipotleTweets – declaring that the chain’s food had been “poisoned”.

The hackers posted homophobic slurs including “fag” and “faggot” – and telling followers to “blow yourself up”.

Hackers hijack Mexican chain’s Twitter and post homophobic slurs

The display picture on the account was also changed to a Nazi swastika, and it claimed the company was now in “full support of the Nazi Party”.

The account also posted racist slurs including “P**i” and attacked the US president saying “F*** that n***** Obama!”

The attack lasted two hours before the chain regained full control of its Twitter account, and

Chipotle has since apologised for the incident, saying: “We apologize for the very offensive messages sent out from our account earlier tonight. We were unfortunately hijacked temporarily.”

A spokesperson for Chipotle said: “We apologise for the nature of the posts that were made during that time, and we are now conducting an investigation to try to determine what happened and who might have been involved.”

In 2013 Chipotle orchestrated a fake hack on its own account to promote its 20th anniversary. At the time a representative said it was not meant to be “harmful or hateful or controversial”.