The tweets now appear to have been deleted, but you can see some in the screenshot below:
While there has been some speculation that this could be some kind of joke/parody by the satirical news site, we reached out to one member of the Syrian Electronic Army — the pro-Assad group who have claimed responsibility for hacks against the AP and the Guardian — who told us the group was behind the attack.
Th3 Pr0, who claims to be just 18-years-old, sent the following screenshot:
Th3 Pr0
E Hacking News has another screenshot that appears to show that hackers gained access to @theonion,@OnionSports, @onionpolitics, @onionstroe and @TheAVClub.
When we asked Th3 Pr0 why they would attack a satirical website, he responded:
The Onion is a satire news organization and quite often is more trusted to reflect the news than the corporate media is known to. Recently they have published an article that savages Syria and its current circumstances. This hurt the feelings of many Syrians who relied on it to tell the truth in a funny way. We hoped that our effort to correct their news would draw attention to the fact that it was likely that an outside decision was involved in changing The Onion's tune.
We don't expect The Onion to change its course as many large US based organisations have proven to be too weak to resist the course their regime chooses for them, but we hope it will draw reader's attention to their double standards even on satire.
The group does appear to be widening the scope of their targets — this weekend the group claimed responsibility for an attack on E! Online.
We've reached out to the Onion for comment, and will update when we hear back.