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YouTube’s biggest videos have been hacked

A group of hackers briefly took the world’s most-watched YouTube video offline.

The news: The BBC reports that hackers called Prosox and Kuroi’sh removed videos, replaced their preview images with pictures of masked people holding guns, and then added the line “Free Palestine” to their YouTube pages.

Details: The most-viewed YouTube clip of all time, the music video for Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito,” is among those affected. Videos by the likes of Drake, Katy Perry, and Taylor Swift were hit, too. All the affected vidoes were posted by the music video firm Vevo.

The hackers say: “Its just for fun ... don t judge me i love youtube <3 [sic].”

But: There’s no word yet from YouTube about the incident. It’s unclear who the hackers are, where they’re based, and what their true motives are.

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Illustration by Rose Wong

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