Voters in California’s 1st congressional district tuned in Thursday night to a live stream of a political forum intended to highlight two candidates running for office. What they got instead was a brief clip of gay porn, the result of the broadcast being hijacked by hackers.
Photo: Getty
The forum, hosted by political organisation Independent Like the North State, managed to get through the introductions and opening statements of the candidates present for the event before getting disrupted by a few seconds of two men fucking, per Redding California ABC affiliate KRCR-TV.
The feed, which was being simultaneously broadcasted online and on local radio station KFOI 90.9 FM, was quickly shut down after that.
“Looks like we got hacked again, we’ll try to fix this,” moderator Chris Verrill said before the broadcast was shut down. It did not return to air and plans to rebroadcast it on local PBS affiliate station KIXE were scrapped because, ya know, the whole porn thing. Verrill later clarified to Motherboard that this was the first time the group had been hacked, as it was the first forum they ever hosted. Not a great start!
“It’s disappointing that some pranksters disrespected the democratic process. But the North State is a great community and we won’t let a few bad apples spoil the whole barrel,” Verrill wrote on Facebook. “We’re already making plans to reschedule the candidate forum so we can work together to move forward.”
The community forum only featured two of seven candidates running for office: Green Party representative Lewis Elbinger and Democrat David Peterson, both of whom are vying for the Democratic nomination in order to take on incumbent Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa.
Both of the candidates have agreed to return for a redo on the debate if it can be arranged before the June 5th primary, per KRCR-TV. Radio station KFOI will broadcast the makeup forum, which is mighty brave of it considering they got tricked into airing several seconds of sexually charged grunting the first time around.
The pornographic disruption was likely a pretty big bummer for the politically engaged residents that populate the northeastern district. The nearly 700,000 residents living in the region are spread across 17,710km², making an online broadcast a solid way for candidates to reach voters.
“It’s disappointing people did not respect us, or the candidates, or more importantly the democratic process, or the community, that’s part of the way democracy works,” Verrill told KRCR-TV.
After its brief appearance during the online forum, the porn video is polling at 13 per cent.