The tweet that cost $139 BILLION: Researchers analyse impact of hacked 2013 message claiming President Obama had been injured by White House explosion- Tweet was sent in 2013 after Syrian hackers accessed AP account
- Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 143.5 points
- Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost more than $136 billion
- Researchers warned that algorithms were to blame for massive drop
By Mark Prigg For Dailymail.com
Published: 18:07 EST, 20 May 2015
It could have been be one of the most expensive tweets in history.
A false tweet from a hacked account owned by the Associated Press (AP) in 2013 sent financial markets into a tailspin.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 143.5 points and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost more than $136 billion of its value in the seconds that immediately followed the post.
Experts say the massive stock crash shows that financial organisations rely too heavily on trading algorithms - and warn the same system could cause 'unpredictable consequences' in the future after analysing this tweet
WHAT HAPPENED? At 1:07 p.m. on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, a tweet went out over the Associated Press’s Twitter feed:@AP: Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.
It was retweeted 4,000 times in less than five minutes.
Later, it emerged hackers had infiltrated the account and sent the message.
The event, known as Hack Crash, demonstrates the need to better understand how social media data is linked to decision making in the private and public sector, according to Tero Karppi, PhD, an assistant professor in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Media Study.
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