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BBC blames 'human error' for Bengali Breaking News alert after hack fears

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By Gillian West, Social media manager

September 3, 2016 | 3 min read

A BBC breaking news alert, which followers assumed was in Arabic, whipped social media users into a frenzy last night (Friday 2 September) as people thought the broadcaster had been hacked by Isis.

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BBC

Former BBC economics editor Robert Peston was among the first to notice the message, tweeting: ‘BBC has just pushed this breaking news alert to my phone. Anyone know what it means?’

The topic quickly trended across Twitter with users speculating the message was in Arabic and the BBC was under the control of terrorist group IS.

However, it quickly emerged the tweet was written in Bengali with the BBC blaming a technical error.

A spokesperson from the BBC said it was sent by mistake and taken down moments later. “It was just an error, somebody tweeted from the wrong account. It was literally a human error and it has been corrected,” they assured.

The Breaking News division followed up, tweeting: “Apologies to anyone who received a breaking news alert from our Bengali service. Don’t worry, we weren’t hacked.”

The tweet in question concerned a police raid on a militant hideout in Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh, where one suspect was killed and three officers injured.

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