Tucker Carlson’s Twitter bio has undergone an unusual alteration and sparked rumours that his account was hacked.
The Fox News host’s Twitter bio says he is a person of colour and a climate activist who identifies as non-binary. It also described him as a “visionary tech founder” and an informal adviser to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, who he has often criticised on his show.
“Non-binary climate change activist of color. Visionary tech founder. CNBC market analyst. Informal Zelensky advisor,” read the new bio that also has two transgender pride flag emojis on it.
The odd update was brought to attention by members of the hacktivist collective and activist group Anonymous. “Tucker Carlson you’ve been #hacked,” they said.
But it turns out Carlson attempted to troll his critics in a repeat of a similar stunt he pulled in May last year when he changed his bio to “fully vaccinated”.
A spokesperson for Fox News told The Daily Beast that the claim his account was hacked was “false, the account has not been hacked”.
Brian Krassenstein, a social media personality and entrepreneur, was also tricked into believing Carlson’s account was hacked.
“BREAKING: Tucker Carlson was just HACKED! The hacker group Anonymous has apparently taken credit for hacking Tucker Carlson’s Twitter account,” his tweet read.
“Stop whatever you are doing, and go look at @TuckerCarlson‘s bio before it gets fixed! Whoever hacked him, hit the nail on the head!,” said another Twitter user Brent Hennrich.
But some Twitter users soon pointed out that his account was not hacked.
“Tucker Carlson getting a lot of free engagement on his Twitter account tonight, but he wasn’t hacked. This is what his bio was a month ago. Everyone has just taken the bait,” Damin Toell said.
Last year, he changed his Twitter bio to “Fully vaccinated. They/Theirs” and a few months later changed it to the pronouns “She/Her” and adding the Ukrainian flag emoji.
More than a million pages of internal Fox messages that were part of a defamation lawsuit against Fox News have revealed high-ranking Fox News personalities had cast doubt on Donald Trump’s election theory even as the network continued to push it on air.
Carlson, who downplayed the Jan 6 riots, told his staff about Mr Trump, “I hate him passionately”, according to a court filing by Dominion Voting Systems that has slapped the lawsuit against the news network.
