THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL of the cult children’s show Sesame Street has returned after being taken offline following a major security breach yesterday – which saw the usually family-friendly website filled with porn.
The channel was compromised on Sunday by hackers who had uploaded pornographic movies to the channel, giving them covert and innocent-sounding names to fool viewers into watching them.
The site was taken down as a result – with visitors simply being told that the channel was suspended “due to repeated or severe violations” of its user guidelines, which ban pornography.
When the profile did return earlier this evening, it carried a small explanatory note on its sidebar:
We apologize for any inconvenience our audience may have experienced yesterday on our Sesame Street YouTube channel.
Our channel was temporarily compromised, but we have since restored our original line-up of the best classic Sesame Street video clips[...]
YouTube does not usually comment on the content of individual users’ pages, but did issue a statement on Sunday simply to reaffirm that it removes inappropriate videos as soon as it learns about them.
The defaced profile carried the names of two YouTube users – appearing to indicate that they were responsible for the hacking – though one of the two has since uploaded a video of his own denying any responsibility. The other user has remained silent.
US outlets have been at paints to point out that the individuals featured in the blue video – which is thought to have been online for up to an hour before being removed – were not themselves Sesame Street characters.
This is probably a given, however, given that the show’s creators have previously underlined that the Muppet characters in the programme don’t have a sexual orientation.
