This morning, many Washingtonians were pretty surprised to get some big, breaking news from The Onion’s Twitter feed:
But there isn’t anything remotely close to that going on at the Capitol, at least not according to the U.S. Capitol Police. Could The Onion have been privy to the kind of social media hacking attack which has plagued news organizations in recent weeks?
Not the case, confirms an Onion spokesperson. The tweets are connected to the lead story on the satire outlet’s website, a send-up of Congressional budget negotiations which is titled “Congress Takes Group of Schoolchildren Hostage”, and, in typical outlandish Onion fashion, features a Photoshop of House Speaker John Boehner holding a gun to a child’s head.
Of course, The Onion may have slightly underestimated the seriousness with which many Washingtonians take their Twitter feeds — the Washington Post reports that many people legitimately thought that the Capitol was under siege.
“This is satire. That’s how it works,” the Onion office told the Post.
That said — and although we have to seriously question anyone who is getting their breaking news exclusively from The Onion’s Twitter feed — it’s easy to see how this kind of joke could fall flat in the District, the land of a million suspicious packages. Not that The Onion seems to care — they’ve already upped the ante, adding a “#CongressHostage” hashtag.
