On Thursday afternoon, Hillary Clinton’s Wikipedia page was targeted by Internet hackers apparently supporting Donald Trump.
The screenshot seen below continued in repetition down the page, displaying the bottom and genitals of an unidentified woman.
The message read:
Reminder that voting for Hillary Clinton this Novmeber [sic] means proving how much of a spineless, boring cuck you are. Nuclear war will be inevitable, as will be Bill Clinton raping more women and children. Save the America you know and love by voting for Donald Trump. Also girls send as pics to @Meepysheepy.
This message has been brought to you by Meepsheep and the Gay Nigger Association of America. Thank you for your time.
Bill Clinton’s page has also been targeted in the same hack, apparently perpetrated by the so-called Gay Nigger Association of America, an Internet-trolling organization active in the mid-to-late aughts. A message left at a number listed for GNAA’s head of public relations on an archived version of the organization’s website was not immediately returned.
The @Meepysheepy Twitter account appears to have last been active in May 2012 and no such Instagram handle exists. Jezebel has attempted to contact the Snapchat user by that name and will update if he or she responds. Wikipedia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Update – 2:15 pm
Both Clintons’ pages have been restored to their original appearance. A Wikipedia spokesperson provided the following statement to Jezebel:
The Wikimedia community takes vandalism very seriously. The vast majority of Wikipedia articles are not vandalized. However, occasionally high traffic or popular articles can attract vandalism, leading Wikipedia editors to quickly revert and limit the amount of editing to an article — which is what has happened here.
In this case, editors responded quickly to revert the vandalism and protect the article. Like most other Wikipedia vandalism, this edit lasted only a matter of minutes. The article is now protected permanently so that only “template editors” or admins (advanced long-term users) are able to edit it.
One note of clarification: calling this “hacking” isn’t quite accurate. Wikipedia is open for anyone to edit — this open model makes Wikipedia possible. But as we’ve seen here when someone makes the unfortunate choice to vandalize, rather than positively contribute to society’s knowledge base, that is quickly undone.
The Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium has identified GNAA as a right-wing extremist and cyberterrorism group. “GNAA’s first president was Andrew Auernheimer aka Weev, @rabite on Twitter,” a TRAC source, discussing GNAA on the condition of anonymity, wrote to Jezebel in an email. “He’s gone full nazifrog some time ago, skipped from Lebanon to Serbia, I think he’s maybe in Crimea now. So there’s your anti-Clinton motivation among a crew of otherwise lulz-focused retards.”
A Twitter user with the handle @Meepsheepy has taken responsibility for the prank, retweeting praise from Auernheimer, who Gawker’s Adrian Chen once described as an “endlessly charming, unrepentant asshole.”
Meepsheep did not immediately return an emailed request for comment.
Update – 3:25 pm
In an email to Jezebel, Meepsheep described making an impromptu decision on Thursday morning, after reviewing his or her Facebook feed, to troll Wikipedia. “I know a lot of people who really blindly support the Clinton campaign for what I interpret as very trivial (and more or less retarded) reasons,” Meepsheep wrote.
“I have a hard time understanding why someone concerned with issues such as women’s rights would support the same woman whose husband’s legacy included sexually harassing nearly every women he came in contact with,” he or she continued. “At the same time I view Trump as being the objectively better candidate.”
Asked why GNAA is getting involved in the election now, Meepsheep demurred. “The media has created a lot of fertile soil for trolling and I’m sure you’ll start seeing a lot more out of the GNAA and others within the next few months,” he or she wrote. “Also, and sorry for sounding like a douche, but could you try to avoid labeling GNAA as ‘alt right.’ We’re pretty separate from that movement and don’t exactly overlap ideologically.”
Asked what pronouns Jezebel should use to refer to him or her, Meepsheep replied, “I only identify by the pronouns All/ahu/akbar.”