Britney Spears death hoax rumors spread amid Sony hack

BY JACOB STEINBLATT

Early Monday, Sony Music Global’s Twitter account sent out a series of highly unusual tweets declaring that pop music icon Britney Spears has died. The tweets tagged Britney Spears’ Twitter account, introduced the hashtag #RIPBritney, and said the singer “is dead by accident.” According to CNN,  the singer’s representative stated that Britney is “alive and well.” 

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The next two tweets, posted shortly later, helped explain the account’s unusual activity.

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Bob Dylan’s account also appeared to have been accessed by the same hacking group, OurMine.

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This is not the first time OurMine has claimed to take over celebrity social media accounts in order to gain publicity. The group has hacked the Twitter accounts of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the past. OurMine’s official website has yet to officially take credit for today’s hacking incident.