The AIMN’s X Account Was Hacked – What Happened and What Comes Next
Over the past week our long-standing X account was compromised.
The verified account, which had approximately 23,300 followers and contained 13 years of commentary and archived posts, was taken over by an unknown individual. The handle was changed and we lost access entirely.
Shortly afterwards, the account began publishing political content – pro Trump/Musk propaganda – that does not reflect our views or our work.
To be clear: any posts made from that account from Feb 23 onward are not ours.
We have lodged a formal complaint with X and are following the platform’s recovery process. Whether the account is restored remains to be seen. In the meantime, we have secured our original handle, @AusIndiMedia, which is now our only official X account.
Our hope, of course, is to get our hacked account back. Losing over 23,000 followers has had a disastrous affect on the daily number of visits to The AIMN from X.
What appears to have happened
At this stage we do not know how access was obtained. There is no evidence that other accounts or personal systems were compromised. The takeover appears limited to the X account itself.
The individual responsible has been posting partisan political material to an audience built over many years for independent Australian political commentary. That audience was earned through consistent writing and engagement. It was not built for propaganda.
The account has also been reclassified as a “Commentary account” under its new management – a change we did not make. This further confirms that the profile has been deliberately altered and is no longer under our control.
Why this matters
Social media accounts are not merely usernames. They are reputational assets. When an account is hijacked and used to publish political messaging under a familiar name, it risks misleading readers and distorting public conversation.
Those who follow our work know our voice. They know our themes. If something appears under our former account that seems inconsistent, that is because it is.
Transparency is the only appropriate response.
What we are asking
If you encounter the compromised account:
• Please do not engage with it.
• Please report it to X for impersonation and unauthorised access.
• Please follow our new account at @AusIndiMedia in the event we are unable to retrieve our original account.
If the matter is resolved, we will update readers accordingly.
In the meantime, our work continues – here and on the restored account. A stolen login does not change the substance of what we write.
Thank you to those who have already shown support.
Here is the hacker: @Emixnusk
Here is an example of what they are posting to our 23,300 followers. All the more reason to have them shut down.
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My only question is what the f*ck are you still doing on Musk’s Far Right racist toxic shit platform???
Why?! Why!!!?
We have over 23,000 reasons why.
@ Max Gross, exactly!
I used to have a twitter account and the same thing happened to me, deliberately hacked and have never been able to get it back, and under those circumstances don’t want it back. It’s nothing but a sewer.
So, in all that time, 3 years, whilst you have built a new website you couldn’t migrate followers or advise that you were going to have an alternate?
There’s always sub stack as well as BlueSky.
Michael, bummer, big time. 🙁
How is this hacking allowed to occur? Do you have access to a white-hatted hacker who can assist you in a reverse hack to regain your account?
Good luck.
Thanks, Canguro. I thought about it. 😁
My thinking is – hence the reason for this post, which I will only share on X – is that the more people report him, it might help resolve my case.
The more we see of Trump and the (mainly) low IQ losers who support him, the more reasons we see to detest his cult
Max Gross is wrong. You never hear another’s viewpoint without listening.
Disclosure 1: I also know what it is to be hacked, still clearing the remains left at a certain bank(the bank wasn’t responsible)
Musk, and quite a few clones at Twitter, haunt me these days…who the real Musk is, I wonder, but I think hackers are involved.
Disclosure 2. Musk is on the list at X for me. I dont know him from Adam, but someone using his name assisted me with a REAL problem of access to X.
If I have it wrong, more fool me.
Some of me must be be still banking on the positive side of human nature.
Michael Taylor hacked.
Is it zionists and spooks?
Just when he has got his system working well.
I’ve discovered it’s a coordinated attack.
I belong to a large anti-Trump group on X (wtpBLUE). There’s something like 60,000 members world-wide, broken up into teams of 30. Three others in my team have also been hacked.
So true, Paul.
Carol knew the late Mungo McCallum, who every morning in the small NSW town they shared residence in, would buy the daily papers, order a coffee, and sit in the corner of the cafe consuming both.
One morning, after buying all the papers bar one, the girl behind the counter asked if he also wanted a copy of The Australian.
He replied, not missing a beat, “I only buy it when I want to know what the anyway is thinking.”
23 thousand reasons!
This is a gut-punch, Michael. Thirteen years of work and trust don’t disappear just because someone hijacks a login.
For readers: please don’t engage with the compromised account. Report it for impersonation/unauthorised access, then block. Engagement only boosts its reach.
Most takeovers are mundane cybercrime — phishing, password reuse, token access — not cloak-and-dagger intrigue. Staying factual protects AIMN’s credibility and strengthens the recovery case.
Follow and share @AusIndiMedia while this is sorted. Independent journalism is built on trust, and that’s worth defending.
So.
A Commentator is wary of the inbreds.
Michael Taylor, it is hard not to be offended at the level of intelligence that follows the Murdoch msm.
Says a lot about how Tech Bros., X and Musk operate on behalf of the right…..
Nonetheless, many media groups offshore dropped X because it became a far right echo chamber overpopulated by bots, trolls and nasty agitprop, while throttling or reducing visibility of any centrist account; backgrounded by algorithms biased against the centre.
BlueSky has become the main place for many, while eg. Peter Jukes of UK ByLine Times keeps X for some posting, but more to keep an eye on the ‘enemy’……
There were analytics tests on large outlets inc NYT, getting bugger all traffic on X….. don’t forget Sales and Speers telling everyone, ABC personnel, to get off X, while RW MSM and influencers remained in their ‘safe space’.
Some indie outlets in Oz, desperate for more eye balls and support, but till defer to X and Meta, while not even keeping their social media up to date, active and able to access offshore audiences……
@ Michael Taylor, Carol Taylor: My late mother worked at News Ltd through the 60s until about 1972 when she took over aged care of my grandmother. During that time she worked several jobs including copy-taker through to Personal Assistant to Rupert. Mungo McCallum was not one of her favourite journalists.
Mungo retired to Ocean Shores, Far North Coast NSW, & attended the local Brunswick Head Sunday Markets where I has a roving bookstall.
We’re on BlueSky, Andrew.
It appears to be a problem that we have created.
We have granted Musk and X and others immense power over our data and our online security but we have failed to impose strict performance criteria with penalties if the standards are not met.
We should be saying to X, you created a hack, that is a Key performance indicator, you are responsible, fix it or suffer the consequences’ – there are no consequences.
“You never hear another’s viewpoint without listening”, claims Paul Walter. So, violent racists, white supremacists, religious fanatics and actual f’ing Nazis should have equal time? We should allow them to broadcast their “viewpoint”? Ah yes, the age old question of tolerating the intolerable! How did that work in, say, the Third Reich?