Over the weekend some particularly nefarious hackers got control of the Sesame Street YouTube account. All of the cute videos of Muppets and monsters singing or learning the alphabet were replaced by some graphic porn clips.
Google owns YouTube and it reportedly took the search giant 20 minutes to respond to the hack. The account was locked down and a YouTube representative told CNN,
"YouTube's Community Guidelines prohibit graphic content. As always, we remove inappropriate material as soon as we are made aware of it."
An official apology was issued by Sesame Workshop, the company that owns Sesame Street, on Sunday.
"Our channel was compromised and we are presently working with YouTube/Google to restore our original content. We always strive to provide age-appropriate content for our viewers and hope to resolve this problem quickly."
Before the content was removed from YouTube a message was posted on the page claiming responsibility for the hack. The names of two YouTube users were used in that message. One of the two users credited, MrEdxwx denied involvement on his own account saying,
"I did not hack Sesame Street. I am an honest YouTuber. I work hard to make quality gameplay videos, and most important I respect the community guidelines."
As the parent of a toddler who loves watching Sesame Street I’m glad we spent the weekend jumping in piles of leaves instead of browsing for new Elmo videos on YouTube. Having porn clips in my face when I’m expecting singing Muppets and before I’ve had coffee is not something my delicate sensibilities could handle.
