in Follow-Up, Meddling, Politics

More Romney hacking victims come forward


Having given up on Facebook’s less-than-ideal search box, I thought to use the Google to find more unwitting Mitt Romney fans. It turns out there are a lot of them. (Click here to see an earlier list of responses.)

An example:

A friend from High School let me know that on the side-ads bar, it said that I ‘like’ Mitt Romney! Imagine that?!?!? I DO NOT LIKE MITT ROMNEY AND I HATE THAT THE FB SOFTWARE HAS DONE THAT. I WILL SUE FOR DAMAGES IF I EVER SEE IT! I HAVE A TEAM OF LAWYERS AND THIS IS NOT OVER!

…and this

My page was somehow updated to show I liked Mitt Romney, which I certainly do not. There was no entry in my activity log. I had to go to his page to ‘unlike’ it. There is no indication that it was an account level hack.


… and this

I’ve noticed that some friends “like” Mitt Romney. When I ask them about it they said that they in fact do not “like” Mitt Romney and they have no idea why their FB page says that. I told them that probably there’s a picture or something in disguise that when you say you “like” it you then LIKE Mitt Romney. I believe the same thing is happening “liking” Paul Ryan.

… and this

Mitt Romney showed up on my timeline as someone I “LIKED”. There is no way I could have accidentally even accidentally like this page. Tried to “UNLIKE” and it won’t let me. Turns out it’s happened to several other people that I know. Some for Mitt Romney, some for Paul Ryan. And you can get rid of it! How is this allowed to happen? And how do I get rid of it?

… this

Me too and a friend of mine as well. I cannot find a way to get rid of it. I tried to block and it won’t let me block this idiot. HELP ME PLEASE!!

… this

Same here. I am sure they paid for it.

… this

I went to the Mitt Romney Facebook page (that said I liked it), clicked on the gear box icon; on the right side & just below the cover picture, clicked on “unlike”. I had to do this two or three times before it quit popping back to “liked”.

It took me a long time and a lot of clicking and navigating, but he finally went away from me page, too. Persist. It works.

… and this (in a message to me):

There are three things I avoid on Facebook: politics, religion, and FarmVille, so I was shocked, not to mention irritated, that somehow someone had made me like Mitt Romney’s Page without permission. I never log into Facebook anywhere but at home, and not even my husband knows my password.

… and this one, where the account of someone’s deceased father was signed up. Please explain how that could happen any way other than by Facebook itself!

I’ve decided to join in on your question to FB here, Mark, hoping that we might get some idea as to the number of people who have experienced this.

As of today, I got notification that my father “liked” Mitt Romney. It came over the newsfeed. The problem, I lost my father at the start of the month!

I find this to not only be upsetting in that it points to a problem with FB security but it also raises the proverbial red flag as to the practices of the Romney campaign. Even more upsetting, the LAST thing my father would want to be remembered as was a supporter of Romney or the conservative platform! Just knowing that a notice of his “support” of ‘Mitt went out to my father’s friends and family……its a disgusting vilolation!

I am now wondering if a hack has been engineered that targets profiles that are relatively inactive. Though my father had a page, he very rarely logged in or posted and of course, since his death early this month, there has been no activity. Accounts like these are perfect targets as the owner might not be aware of the invasion for quite some time.

I am headed over to his account now to clear up this heinous bit of miscommunication and set the record straight. I hope that FB will do what they can to set things straight on their end as well.

I hope more people sign up for the Hacked By Mitt Romney page and share their stories.

  1. I seriously doubt Romney (whom I am no fan of) had anything to do with this.

    No, I think this is much more likely the cost of the “free” social media apps that willfully ignorant people approve every single day to have access to their social media profiles.

    Tell me, what is the incentive of a bunch of valuable software developers to labor long and hard to develop an application that hundreds of thousands (or millions) of people will want to use, host it, and charge nothing for it?

    This is, IMHO, the idiocy tax being paid by people who are playing loose & dirty with “free” software.

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