It was a big deal when Sesame Street came to YouTube (it came to Hulu and iTunes at the same time). These online channels provide worldwide access for children everywhere to enjoy Sesame Street content that many of us grown-ups enjoyed when we were young, only on a variety of devices. As the father of a young child who always wants to play with my smartphone, I can certainly appreciate this.
Luckily, we didn’t visit the Sesame Street YouTube channel yesterday, as we may have had to have a conversation I’m not ready to have yet.
The channel was hacked, and the videos of muppets teaching things were replaced by apparently hardcore porn. Classy, hackers. Classy.
According to TheNextWeb, which broke the news, it was about 22 minutes before Google pulled the content. With YouTube being the second largest search engine (as Google often likes to remind us), I’m guessing that was more than enough time for some children to see some stuff.
Last night, the SesameWorkshop Twitter account tweeted out the following:
@SesameWorkshop
Sesame WorkshopPlease read: Statement from Sesame Workshop Regarding Sesame Street’s YouTube Channel http://t.co/L3hnKawA
15 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
That leads to a Facebook post, saying:
We apologize for any inconvenience our audience may have experienced today on ourSesame Street YouTube channel. Our channel was compromised and we are presently working with YouTube/Google to restore our original content. We always strive to provide age-appropriate content for our viewers and hope to resolve this problem quickly.
Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley shows a screenshot of what the channel’s profile info was changed to. This includes the user name: Mredxwx. This is a real YouTube user, who has since uploaded this video claiming it was not him:
The hacked profile info also included the message: “WHO DOESN’T LOVE PORN KIDS? RIGHT! EVERYONE LOVES IT! IM MREDXWX AND MY PARTNER MRSUICIDER91 ARE HERE TO BRING YOU MANY NICE CONTENT! PLEASE DON’T LET SESAME STREET TO GET THIS ACCOUNT BACK KIDS 🙁 PLEASE…LET ME AND MRSUICIDER91 HAVE IT AND WE GONNA MAKE ALL THE AMERICA HAPPY!”
Sigh.