This teenage Iraqi hacker held a British newspaper hostage... for Instagram followers

The Facebook account of British newspaper The Independent was hacked after midnight on Thursday. Followers began to notice something was wrong when a profile image of the Iraqi flag after the Gulf War was put up.

They sat and waited to see what would happen next. There are countless motives to hack a newspaper and it could be done by anyone.

However, in this instance, it turns out, the hacker was an Iraqi teenager who hijacked the newspaper’s page to merely get more Instagram and Snapchat followers on his own account.

Facebook Post

Iraqi social media personality Mahmood Jumaa trolled The Independent following in both Arabic and English, calling on his "Arab people," some of whom found the situation hilarious.

Translation: Where are they? This is a call to the Arab base where are you all?

I mean, what could possibly be more important than more social media followers, right?

— Yassine (@VagabondFocus) August 17, 2017" style="color:#fff;" class="twitter-post-link" target="_blank">Twitter Post So apparently the Facebook page of the British online newspaper The @Independent got hacked. The dude started promoting himself. 😂 pic.twitter.com/j8qJbrlAVk — Yassine (@VagabondFocus) August 17, 2017

— Jeep (@T1mmyg) August 17, 2017" style="color:#fff;" class="twitter-post-link" target="_blank">Twitter Post Hahaha the independent being hacked by some dude advertising his insta and sc is too much 😂 — Jeep (@T1mmyg) August 17, 2017

Apparently he also started a livestream of himself dancing to Iraqi music...

— Jacob Alcala (@ThatOtherAlcala) August 17, 2017" style="color:#fff;" class="twitter-post-link" target="_blank">Twitter Post Someone hacked the @Independent on Facebook and went live.... kinda humorous. — Jacob Alcala (@ThatOtherAlcala) August 17, 2017

And posted some news content of his own...

the independent has been hacked but at least now they're sharing worthwhile stories pic.twitter.com/e7o49hkarv — ella (@close2gold) August 17, 2017

Though, fun was over for Mahmood when the page manager had apparently messaged him and told him to stop fooling around.