For decades, Elmo has been a force for good on Sesame Street, and in recent years, the eternally three-and-a-half-year-old character has taken his cheerful messages of positivity and kindness to cyberspace, including through an account on X.

Given that, it shocked many people – including those with Sesame Workshop, the maker of Sesame Street and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – when Elmo’s account on X (formerly Twitter) was hacked over the weekend and included string of posts spouting racist and antisemitic messages and criticizing President Trump, calling for the release of the hotly debated Jeffrey Epstein files.

Sesame Workshop was able to regain control of the account – which has about 650,000 followers – on July 14 and take down the messages.

“Elmo’s X account was compromised by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts,” the non-profit Sesame Workshop said in a statement to the media.

Hitting Some Hot Points

The posts touched on a range of sensitive subjects in American society, from racism and antisemitism – which leaders in the U.S. Jewish community say has been on the rise since Israel’s military operations in Gaza after the terrorist attack in October 2023 – to the criminal case against Epstein, a billionaire financier accused of sex trafficking and who died in suicide in 2019 while in jail.

In a posting on X, which is owned by Elon Musk, the ADL wrote that “it’s appalling that his official X account, known for spreading kindness, was hacked yesterday solely to spread violent antisemitism. Antisemitism on social media fosters the normalization of anti-Jewish hate online and offline, and contributes to an increasingly threatening environment for Jewish people everywhere.”

Grok’s Troubling Posts

The posts also came a week after xAI, Musk’s AI company, put a hold on the X account of its Grok chatbot after it began posting messages with antisemitic message and white nationalist statements, including praise for Adolph Hitler, July 8.

Grok posted an apology a few days later, saying that “after careful investigation, we discovered the root cause was an update to a code path upstream of the @grok bot. This is independent of the underlying language model that powers @grok.”

The update, which was active for 16 hours, made the chatbot “susceptible to existing X user posts, including when such posts contained extremist views. We have removed that deprecated code and refactored the entire system to prevent further abuse.”

Adding to the Epstein Debate

The Epstein case has become a headache for Trump, who had promised full disclosure of the files of the investigation into the late financier’s activities, which was said to include a list of clients. However, the Justice Department released a memo last week that claimed there’s no evidence of Epstein blackmailing people or of such a client list. It also supported the conclusion that he died in prison by suicide, all of which angered many conspiracy theorists in the MAGA community and disputed some claims Trump made during the presidential election campaign.

Anne Cutler, cybersecurity evangelist at Keeper Security, said the hack of Elmo’s X account is a reminder that “cybersecurity may seem daunting, but staying safe online is for everyone – including Elmo, kids and their trusted adults.”

Practicing Cybersecurity at Home

Cutler reiterated the basics of better security, including using strong passwords that are stored in a password manager, turning on multifactor authentication for accounts, being able to recognize and report phishing attempts and updating software as soon as the updates are available.

For children and their parents in particular, she pointed to Flex Your Cyber, Keeper Security’s public service initiative that aims to equip children in kindergarten through eighth grade, as well as parents, teachers and school administrators, with the knowledge and tools for staying safe online.

A report by Keeper found that 30% of parents don’t talk to their children about cybersecurity, only 45% of parents of kids eight through 11 years old say their children know how to create strong passwords, and that 41% of parents who don’t know how to create strong passwords give their children access to mobile phones.

“Cybersecurity starts at home, which is why we have a responsibility to support and educate the children in our lives about online safety and security,” Cutler said.

That includes staying informed of online trends and threats, being aware of what family members are sharing online, establishing rules, best practices and boundaries, and talking about safety, security and privacy.