WASHINGTON – A member of a group supporting Hillary Clinton staged a cyberattack using pornography to infect Facebook pages promoting Bernie Sanders, leading the social media network to take them down temporarily.
At least eight pro-Sanders groups – including Bernie Believers, Bernie or Bust, Bernie Sanders for President and Bernie Sanders is My Hero – were disabled between 9 p.m. and midnight Monday, according to Heavy.com.
The social media groups had about 225,000 members combined.
The pages were inundated with pornographic photos, including pedophilia, and automatically taken down by Facebook as inappropriate content.
“We had what looked like a kiddie porn posted in one of our groups today,” said Sanders supporter Erica Libenow told Heavy.com. “I reported that one. Seriously made me want to vomit.”
One pro-Hillary Clinton group, Bros4Hillary, apologized for the attack and blamed a rouge former member who acted on his own.
‘We had what looked like a kiddie porn posted in one of our groups today…Seriously made me want to vomit.’
- Erica Libenow, Sanders supporter
“Last night, a former member by the name of Casey Champagne decided to engage in harassing behavior toward Facebook groups of Bernie Sanders and posted about it in the B4H Facebook group,” the group said in statement Tuesday.
“…This was not promoted or supported by the leadership of B4H, nor were we immediately aware of this conduct. We removed the offending posts and member as soon as possible.”
All the Bernie Facebook groups were up and running again Tuesday, but members took out their anger on Clinton.
One group, World for Bernie tweeted: “SHAME on @HillaryClinton & @HFA! We’ll NEVER SUPPORT HER! We are #BernieOrBust!”
Clinton has struggled to woo young voters and the cyber blackout made some Sanders’ supporters even more anti-Clinton.
Sanders supporter Genara Clay tweeted: “Just made a $50 donation 2 #BernieSanders in honor of $hillary & her #BernieBlackout u have 2 b some kind of evil to post bull and report us.