Piers Morgan’s Twitter account abuses queen and Ed Sheeran in apparent hack

Presenter’s account loses most of its content after apparent hacker shares false information and racial slurs

Piers Morgan’s Twitter account has been wiped of much of its content, amid reports it was hacked.

The former Good Morning Britain (GMB) presenter, 57, who has 8.3 million followers on the social media site, had no profile picture, banner image or posts on Tuesday afternoon. Some tweets containing still and video images remained, as did records of tweets his account had liked.

According to reports, his account shared posts overnight containing false information, racial slurs and abusive messages directed at the late Queen Elizabeth II and the singer Ed Sheeran.

It comes after the account of the UK education secretary, Gillian Keegan, appeared to be hacked on Christmas Day. Her account replied to several tweets with links to websites advertising cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

The tweets on Keegan’s account began appearing shortly before 7.30pm on Christmas Day, and were sent throughout the evening into the early hours on Boxing Day.

Last month the Commons speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, wrote to MPs advising them to ramp up security on their mobile phones with multi-factor verification, as well as update software and delete old messages.

The warning came after Liz Truss’s phone was reportedly hacked by Russians in the summer when she was foreign secretary and frontrunner in the Tory leadership race.

Morgan’s Instagram account appeared to be operating normally.

The presenter, who recently joined TalkTV as the host of its Uncensored show after quitting GMB, has not publicly addressed the apparent hack.

Earlier this month, the Metropolitan police said no further action would be taken against a man suspected of sending death threats to Morgan and his family online.

On Twitter, Morgan complained there was a “big problem with how big tech operates its safety procedures”.

A spokesperson for TalkTV declined to comment. Neither Morgan nor Twitter have responded to requests for comment.

Contributor

Kevin Rawlinson and agency

The GuardianTramp

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