False alarm everyone. The British Broadcasting Corporation is not under cyber-terror attack.
Early on Friday evening at around 5.20pm, the BBC sent out an alert to subscribers to their news app, about a militant firefight in Bangladesh. But rather embarrassingly, they shared the story in Bengali rather than English.
It was of course a complete mistake and an awkward one at that. But alas these things happen, and the most you’d usually expect is for people to take the piss a bit on the internet and have a laugh at the Beeb’s expense.
However, it caused a huge panic for a great number of people, who very near shit themselves at the error. That’s because they mistook the Bengali characters for Arabic, and jumped to the conclusion that ISIS had hacked the BBC.
As you can see, many feared it was Islamic State propaganda invading their smartphones and tablets…
ISIS HAVE HACKED BBC NEWS DO NO TRUST IT GUYS RETWEET THIS pic.twitter.com/H0Pxt3LE4b
— sheila (@c_sixty7) September 2, 2016
Think BBC News got hacked by ISIS… pic.twitter.com/rlJVKgXPni
— Paul McCabe (@paulmpb) September 2, 2016
Ermmm I think Isis might of hacked the bbc??? pic.twitter.com/AfrCQSQsZ9
— con (@ConnorLester) September 2, 2016
ISIS hacked the BBC there or what? pic.twitter.com/yO9ozB0Pu3
— thomo (@Jamesthomps0n) September 2, 2016
Has isis hacked into bbc news or what pic.twitter.com/WNwdeDH6S7
— jess (@jesswilssonn) September 2, 2016
Pretty sure Isis have just hacked bbc news.. ?? pic.twitter.com/IvQ2Cqbric
— Jack Shingler (@jackshingler) September 2, 2016
Thankfully it was far from the case, and BBC Breaking News were quick to clarify the situation for their stressed out readers. Panic over and nothing to see here…
Apologies to anyone who received a breaking news alert from our Bengali service. Don't worry, we weren't hacked
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) September 2, 2016
Not that that stopped s0me from expressing utter dismay at the knee-jerk reaction of those fearing a cyber-attack…
BBC News accidentally sends out something in Bengali and Brits think ISIS have hacked the BBC… pic.twitter.com/ztj1zcqpl8
— Ethan Harvey (@ethanharv) September 2, 2016
Who are these mad people who thought the BBC had been hacked by Isis rather than mixed up Twitter accs when they saw a Bengali tweet?
— HelsBels (@Helsa0326) September 2, 2016
LOL at people who've just seen a non-Western script in the BBC Breaking app and are screaming "OMG, ISIS hacked the BBC"
— Nigel Whitfield (@nigelwUK) September 2, 2016
Blimey. What a drama over essentially nothing.