DURBAN - The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal has opted to open a new Facebook page after their original page was hacked almost a month ago.
ANC KZN spokesperson Nhlakanipho Ntombela said they decided to open a new page because they had been waiting on Facebook to fix their former page and return it to them.
Ntombela said their new page was now @MyANCKZN.
At the moment, the page only has over 780 followers and people who like the page.
On the new Facebook page, the last post was of the ANC in KZN being in support of the KZN provincial government precinct as part of job creation and economic recovery.
It has been almost a month since the ANC KwaZulu-Natal Facebook page was alleged to have been hacked.
For a week, whoever hijacked the page treated the 85 547 followers to viral videos of animals, especially birds and snakes.
The first Facebook post was made on February 23, and the last post was made on March 2.
Last month, Ntombela had appealed to the public to be circumspect when engaging with the page in its current form and not to interact with it or accede to any pleas that the hijackers the page might make, including requests for money transfers, as per popular modus operandi that hackers tend to employ.
However, followers have engaged, reacted and even shared the videos posted on the page.
Some commenting on some of the posts were asking and stating that the page was still hacked.
Ntombela also said they were working around the clock to rectify the security breach. The ANC in KZN will provide an update on the matter in due course.
When the Daily News visited the page when it was first hacked, it found that the last post which appeared authentic was on February 15, when the ANC provincial chairperson, Sihle Zikalala, in his capacity as KZN premier, alongside legislature speaker, Nontembeko Boyce, concluded a two-day Zulu royal family visit.
On February 21, a post was made on the page ANC KZN was live for more than seven hours. It was captioned “dsfdsfsdf”, that post has since been deleted.
Then, the ANC in KZN said the hackers seemed to have gained access to the page’s security settings and removed all admin personnel who were members of the ANC’s Department of Information and Publicity.
The ANC said it understood that the hackers were also attempting to report the page to Facebook to get it taken down.
Daily News