"We had two factor authorization enacted and changed passwords recently," city spokesperson Megan Lovely said around 8:30 p.m. "We were alerted by Twitter this afternoon there was a login from Turkey. Then we contacted Twitter immediately and began changing passwords. We hope to have this resolved quickly."
The Eagle reached out to the city after a reporter got an odd message from the city's Twitter page (@CityofWichita), which has more than 22,000 followers. A city spokesperson responded that they had been hacked and just found out.
The message, sent at 4:19 p.m., said that the Eagle reporter's check mark, meaning their account has been verified as a trustworthy source, has been "detected as spam and we will therefore remove it from your account." The message says the decision can be appealed and provided a link. The message ends with a "Thanks" from the "Twitter Team."
"Don't respond to any Twitter scam," said spokesperson Jim Jonas.
The message didn't go to another Eagle reporter that doesn't have a check mark. Lovely said they didn't know yet how many people had been messaged.
The city's Twitter profile picture was blank Friday evening and the page had a padlock on it, meaning it was private and people who do not already follow the account cannot view posts made by the page.
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