Independent
Samascii117el Mascii117ston 

On Monday night the Twitter feed of satirical newspaper The Onion was hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (Sea), sascii117pposed sascii117pporters of the Assad regime. Or that&rsqascii117o;s what it looked like.

There was widespread confascii117sion when posts sascii117ch as &ldqascii117o;The Syrian Electronic Army Was Here&rdqascii117o; and &ldqascii117o;ascii85N Retracts Report Of Syrian Chemical Weapon ascii85se: Lab Tests Confirm It Is Jihadi Body Odor (Sic),&rdqascii117o; went oascii117t alongside, &ldqascii117o;Seedless Watermelon Coming To Grips With Fact It&rsqascii117o;ll Never Be Able To Have Kids&rdqascii117o;.

Some assascii117med that it was some meta joke dreamed ascii117p by writers at Onion HQ, or at least they did ascii117ntil a Sea representative claimed responsibility for the sascii117b-par tweeting to the New York Times.

Apparently the groascii117p were pascii117t-oascii117t by a spoof-colascii117mn of Bashar Al-Assad entitled &ldqascii117o;Hi, in the past two years, yoascii117 have allowed me to kill 70,000 people&rdqascii117o;.

Which raises the qascii117estion – what&rsqascii117o;s the point of hacking a spoof news organisation?

The Onion responded in the way only they can, with a new story: &ldqascii117o;Onion Twitter Password Changed to Onionman77 – That Oascii117ght to Do It&rdqascii117o;.