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Hackers get to Sesame Street

Sesame Street’s YouTube page became a very family-unfriendly place Sunday when hackers posted porn to the channel.

 

Kevin Morris

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Posted on Oct 17, 2011   Updated on Jun 3, 2021, 2:08 am CDT

Sesame Street’s YouTube page became a very family-unfriendly place Sunday when hackers posted porn to the channel.

In a message posted to Sesame Street’s YouTube profile, the hackers identified themselves as YouTubers Mredxwx and MrSuicider91, according to Internet research firm Sophos.

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!

Mredxwx quickly denied the allegations.

“Please understand i did not hack sesame street,” he wrote on his YouTube page. “i RESPECT youtube community guidelines !”

YouTube’s community guidelines prohibit graphic content. The company quickly took the page down. As of 10 a.m. ET Monday the channel remains blocked.

Sesame Street, meanwhile, quickly posted an apology to the show’s official Facebook page:

“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.”

Parents of Sesame Street fans no doubt had to shield their children’s eyes a second time as Facebook users rushed to post bad, explicit jokes in reply to the statement.

“Did they have any good Elmo fisting videos?,” Dan Mullen wrote. Four people “liked” that joke.

“Todays words were ‘backshots’ and ‘doggy’ presented by the number 69 and the letter X,” Scream Shizzy wrote — also with four “likes.”

“Lol,” Terrell Kornegay helpfully added.

But on Facebook and other sites, not everyone thought the porn hack was hilarious. Users of social news site Reddit widely condemned the the action.

“Attacking a show that promotes tolerance, learning and generally not being an entitled asshole?” Reddit user mattzm wrote. “This is why we can’t have nice things.”

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*First Published: Oct 17, 2011, 2:16 pm CDT