It was a wild ride for a few hours over the weekend. Someone hacked the official Elmo account on Twitter, turning it into a mouthpiece for the Third Reich, or Hamas if you will, with insane posts about killing Jews. It was mayhem, though it led to some hilarious reactions. In the aftermath, The New York Times decided to turn the entire incident into a special after-school segment about the rise of Islamophobia. Brianna Wu, a noted progressive, was appalled by the coverage. When a left-wing transgender American finds this to be a misfire—it’s a misfire (via NYT):
On Sunday, Elmo’s X account was briefly hacked by an outside party, in spite of the security measures in place.
— Elmo (@elmo) July 15, 2025
We strongly condemn the abhorrent antisemitic and racist content, and the account has since been secured.
These posts in no way reflect the values of Sesame Workshop… pic.twitter.com/MaTqsjQ81V
A hacker shared a string of racist and antisemitic posts from the X account of Elmo, the fuzzy red monster from “Sesame Street,” the owner and producer of the children’s show said on Sunday.
The posts, on a verified account with more than 600,000 followers, contained racial slurs, antisemitic language and commentary about President Trump and the so-called Epstein files, the remaining investigative documents of the sex-trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. The posts were removed shortly after they were published on Sunday afternoon.
“Elmo’s X account was compromised today by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts,” a spokeswoman for Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind “Sesame Street,” said in a brief statement. “We are working to restore full control of the account.”
[…]
Experts have recorded a surge in antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents since Hamas led an attack on Israel in 2023 that prompted the Israeli military to invade Gaza.
Really? ‘Elmo’ says kill the Jews, but let’s talk about the rise of Islamophobic attacks.
This is very disappointing from the @nytimes this morning. They are writing about @elmo being hacked to say “kill all Jews,” but then they make it about Muslims and Palestine.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) July 14, 2025
Nothing about this story involves Muslims. It’s journalistic malpractice to conflate the two. All this… pic.twitter.com/CA4BRulx15
“Nothing about this story involves Muslims. It’s journalistic malpractice to conflate the two. All this is dilute the seriousness of antisemitism in what American Jews are facing,” tweeted Wu. “This is the time to talk about Jew hate directly, not to falsely equivocate.”
Damn. That's hard to argue with, given what we've seen nationwide, especially on college campuses.