New York congressman Anthony Weiner is used to all the jokes about his surname as a slang synonym – and he expects to hear a lot more after an embarrassing photograph purporting to be sent from his Twitter account was circulated by a conservative news website.
The photograph of a torso clad in underwear – described by Vanity Fair as "an image of a gentleman's pelvis" and "a sexually suggestive photograph of a man from the waist down" by the New York Times – appeared to have been sent from Weiner's Twitter account (via the Yfrog photo-sharing service) to a woman who followed the politician's Twitter feed.
Although the offending tweet seems to have been deleted minutes after being posted online, a copy of the photograph then appeared on the website Big Government. Weiner then said that his account – along with his Facebook account – had been hacked. "More Weiner Jokes for all my guests!" the congressman tweeted, adding the hashtag "#Hacked!"
Weiner's staff later issed a more formal statement: "Anthony's accounts were obviously hacked." What little evidence there is tends to support Weiner's account but Twitter, which presumably could crack the case easily, refuses to comment, citing its privacy policy. The unlucky recipient of the photographic tweet – a 21-year-old student – denied any involvement and gave a statement to the New York Daily News:
All of this is so outlandish that I don't know whether to be pissed off or amused, quite frankly. This is the reality of sharing information online in the 21st century.
A prolific Twitter user and a well-known wit who once shared a house with Daily Show host Jon Stewart, Weiner represents parts of Queens and Brooklyn in the US House of Representatives and is a likely Democratic candidate for New York City mayor in the 2013 municipal election.
Weiner is also one of the more outspoken liberal members of the Democratic party in Congress and a frequent target of Republican attacks. For his opponents, "Weinergate" is an opportunity to embarrass a leading Democrat not long after a Republican congressman resigned over sending topless photographs of himself to women contacted via Craigslist – which led to a humiliating defeat for the Republicans last week.
Weiner and his staff at first described the hacker's action as a prank but have since taken the issue more seriously:
We've retained [legal] counsel to explore the proper next steps and to advise us on what civil or criminal actions should be taken. This was a prank. We are loath to treat it as more, but we are relying on professional advice.
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