hacked

Between threats from Anonymous and a new crackdown from Twitter, ISIS is having a tough time reaching out and recruiting new psychopaths online.

To circumvent the censorship, the Islamic militant group has reportedly created its own social network called “Khelafabook.”

The Facebook clone claims it is independent and not actually sponsored by ISIS (even though it has ISIS logos all over its homepage). It says its goal is to show the world that they don’t only “live in caves” and “carry guns,” and they vow to “will rule the world by Allah’s permission.”

Khelafabook was set up by a man in Mosul, Iraq, according to The Independent, and is hosted in Egypt. There’s also an associated Twitter account which is linked to from the site.

The site first popped up last week, but has already been taken offline “to protect the info and details of its members,” according to a message on the page.

After it was taken down, Twitter accounts associated with Anonymous appeared to claim responsibility, as Vocativ points out.

For the the time being they’ll have to look elsewhere to share their terrorist pancake recipes.

Facebook and Instagram were down for a brief period of time on Monday, and this was enough to send some people into a panic.

The local 911 dispatcher in the East Bay area of California told the Claycord blog that they received 5 different calls from people complaining about the outage.

“Our lines are [sic] dedicated to handle life and death calls, and even though Facebook is important to a lot of people, it’s not a matter of life and death when it stops working,” the dispatcher said. “One caller even called back to tell me I was being rude because I told her it wasn’t a life threatening emergency.”

The hacker group Lizard Squad initially claimed responsibility for the outage, but Facebook later issued a statement denying the group’s involvement.

“Earlier today many people had trouble accessing Facebook and Instagram,” they said. “This was not the result of a third party attack but instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems. We moved quickly to fix the problem, and both services are back to 100% for everyone.”

Fortunately it only lasted an hour, so these 5 terrible people were able to quickly get back to posting selfies, babies and gross food pictures. PHEW.

Last night, a hacker found his or her way into the social media accounts of at least nine different Major League Baseball Teams, posting status updates and tweets that ranged from the crude to the (admittedly) hilarious. Curse you, illegal criminal of cyberspace, for making me laugh!

All teams have since deleted the offending posts. The Chicago Cubs even followed up with the tweet: "For the record, the #Cubs are big fans of Bill Murray. #NotHacked."

The hacker is still at large (watch out, NHL!)

Update: Deadspin reports that the MLB Facebook and Twitter accounts were not hacked, but were instead at the mercy of a rogue employee working for the "Advanced Media" arm of the MLB (which collectively manages all its teams' online presence).

The posts may have been an inside joke and not meant for public eyes, but Deadspin also notes that employees working for the social media arm of the MLB are grievously underpaid.