A Twitter account belonging to the Associated Press was apparently hacked Tuesday, and a tweet went out indicating two explosions at the White House had injured the President.
The AP moved swiftly to delete the posts, and suspend its account.
It tweeted the following two messages:
The market quickly recovered as investers realized what had happened.
The (at)AP twitter account has been hacked. A tweet about an attack at the White House is false. We will advise on acct. status.<br/>The <a href="http://twitter.com/AP" rel="user" target="_blank"><span class="at">@</span>AP</a> Twitter account has been suspended after it was hacked. The tweet about an attack on the White House was false.
The false tweet reportedly triggered a sharp drop in the Dow Industrial Average, as Wall Street reacted to the fake report.