When you have "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" and "STUFF YO" on the front page of a leading media outlet, one can only say "Whoops." Visitors of FoxNews.com on Tuesday saw headlines scream out warning that zombies are coming alongside other funny headlines. Initially the online world thought that the website was hacked but the company clarified it was not a victim of a cyber attack.
Fox News displayed headlines such as "World Zombie Day to Bring Out the Living Dead" and another featuring the unveiling of the "Maverick Sea Lion" at the WWDC of Apple. Apparently this was not a post-Halloween fun by some hackers and was immediately fixed by the company. The website was down at around 2:30 p.m. E.T., acknowledged at around 2:59 p.m., and repaired after a short while.
Despite speculations that the website was hacked, the company clarified that it was an internal production error.
"As you may have seen Fox.News.com is having issues. It's an internal production problem and will be fixed soon. #FoxNews," the company posted on its official Twitter account.
Officials of the network also reached out to other outlets to share what really happened.
"During routine website maintenance, a home page prototype was accidently moved to the actual site. As with any mistake in testing, engineers noticed the error and quickly brought the site back to its normal function,' Jeff Misenti, chief digital officer of Fox News, said in an email statement.
The temporary nonsensical and whimsical content of the website sent the Twitter world into a commenting frenzy.
"Is 'internal production problem' fancy speak for 'hacked?' I think you got hacked. Get well soon," said a certain Brandon Darby on Twitter.
"@FoxNews Are you going to the #MillionMaskMarch," said another user, implying involvement of the activities of the hacktivist group Anonymous.
"Stop covering the up the zombies! We want the truth," commented another user on the social network.
As of writing, it seems Fox News' bland explanation was the bitter but real truth. No zombies have been sighted in the United States and other parts of the globe as of writing. Whoops!
