Tech

Navy Facebook Account Hacked to Stream ‘Age of Empires’

Someone has taken control of a powerful warship’s Facebook account and is using it to stream a 20-year-old strategy game.
Destroyer With a Jolly Roger
Image: U

The U.S. Navy has lost control of the official Facebook page for its destroyer-class warship, the USS Kidd. Someone has hacked the page and, for the past two days, done nothing but stream Age of Empires. The first stream went on for four hours.

As first reported by Task & Purpose, the USS Kidd lost control of its Facebook account at 10:26 p.m. on October 3. The destroyer class warship then streamed Age of Empires for four hours under the headline “Hahahahaha.” It’s since streamed Age of Empires five more times, each time for at least an hour. Whoever is playing sucks, because they never make it past the Stone Age.

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The Navy did not immediately respond to Motherboard’s request for comment, but Navy Spokesperson Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman told Task & Purpose that it had been hacked. “The official Facebook page for USS Kidd (DDG 100) was hacked,”she said. “We are currently working with Facebook technical support to resolve the issue.”

As of this writing, the six videos are still up and watchable. Each of the six videos was posted with a fun little phrase like “hi guys,” “play game,” and “fffffffffffff.” There are only a few comments, mostly from confused family members of sailors. 

“When my son comes home tomorrow he's not going to [be] able to live this down if it's one of his [fire controlmen],” the first comment on the first video said.

This isn’t the first time the American military has lost control of an official social media account. In 2020, Fort Bragg’s Twitter account tweeted a horny reply to an OnlyFans model. The Army claimed the account had been hacked but a subsequent investigation revealed a civilian with access to Fort Bragg’s twitter handle messed up and forgot to log back into his personal account before being horny online.

For now, USS Kidd is just posting wholesome footage of a 20-year-old RTS.