A Democratic candidate’s online forum was cancelled on Thursday night after the live stream was “hacked” by gay porn.
The moderators immediately shut down the stream and apologized.
KRCTV reported:
An online forum featuring two candidates for California’s 1st District U.S. Congressional seat was interrupted when the internet feed was hacked during the live conference.
The organization Independent Like the North State presented the forum, which was open to the seven candidates vying for incumbent Doug LaMalfa’s seat. Only two candidates, Lewis Elbinger, Green Party candidate from Mount Shasta, and David Peterson, Democrat from Grass Valley, were present.
Online viewers and listeners on radio station KFOI 90.9 FM had just heard opening statements from the two candidates when a video feed, clearly showing sexual acts between two men, filled the screen for several seconds shortly after 8:00 p.m. Thursday night.
The moderator could be heard saying, “Looks like we got hacked again, we’ll try to fix this.” The feed was then shut down.
Moderator Chris Verrill told KRCR it was a disappointing turn of events.
“We had a community forum, and while it’s disappointing people did not respect us, or the candidates, or more importantly the democratic process, or the community, that’s part of the way democracy works,” Verrill said.
Verrill said that they are hoping to reschedule the debate in the future, and work on resolving some security issues.
KFOI 90.9 FM radio station released a statement following the porn incident.
If you listened in to the congressional candidate forum we started to air on Thursday evening, you’ll know that we had to stop the program when the host’s conference was hacked. We don’t think our listeners heard anything “untoward” however, we are taking this opportunity to give some more information about our decision to try to air the forum. It utilized a well established conferencing software platform that is in use daily throughout the nation and beyond. The idea of inviting all seven candidates and the public together from living rooms and smart phones throughout this eleven-county congressional district was exciting — an excellent use of the internet to further participation in the democratic election process. As it turned out, only two candidates chose to participate and… a hacker broke in so we had to shut the event down. The forum hosts are in contact with the conferencing company to see how this can be prevented in the future.
Bummer.
Moderator Chris Verrill has no idea how the event was hacked with gay porn. Then again this is the same guy who tweets out his phone number online so there’s that.
It is not clear at this time if the Russians were blamed for this hacking.
"hacker" That's what they all say https://t.co/4iYcbypHbq
— Pardes Seleh (@PardesSeleh) May 19, 2018
