Buster Olney, a trusted baseball reporter with a substantial following of 1.3 million on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, faced a disturbing hack on his account. Despite Olney’s lack of control over his feed, his followers were confronted with a series of misleading and sensationalist posts during Monday evening.
The hacker, taking over Olney’s account around 5 p.m. ET, disseminated a stream of tweets containing false information, NSFW content, and bizarre GIFs over the course of 20 minutes. Among the fabricated stories were alleged trades involving prominent players like Luis Robert Jr. and Francisco Lindor, as well as sensational claims about baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani and team relocations.
As the hack escalated, the perpetrator spread increasingly outlandish falsehoods, including the cancellation of the 2024 MLB season due to COVID-19 and the relocation of the Baltimore Orioles to Las Vegas. The hacker even went as far as expressing bizarre sentiments, such as professing love for Athletics general manager Billy Beane and expressing disdain for the New York Mets.
Ultimately, the false tweets were deleted around 6:30 p.m. ET, though remnants of the incident remained in the form of replies. This incident is not unprecedented, as Olney joins a list of reporters, including Jeff Passan, who have fallen victim to social media hacks, highlighting the vulnerability of high-profile individuals to such cyberattacks.
