Councillor’s Facebook account targeted as part of cyber porn attack on independence supporters

The councillor for Clackmannanshire East was horrified when she discovered messages had been sent to her council Facebook account to tell her that she had been tagged on pornographic photos and a video had appeared on her profile.

The revelation came after The National exposed the scandal on Saturday that thousands of SNP, pro-independence and Yes campaigners had been bombarded with shocking photos and videos of people having sex and masturbation.

Hamilton said: “I was quite shocked when I saw the video on my Facebook profile. I did untag straight away and removed from my page.

“I found this quite concerning as my security settings are set in a way that if anyone tags me, this should not go on my timeline unless I click that it is ok.

“I am also very concerned about this due to my position as councillor and Depute Provost.

“This sort of filth being on my page is not good for anyone, but especially not for someone in this position.

“I was also concerned that some of my younger Facebook friends, who are still at school, would have seen this too.

“I have noticed that over the past few weeks, I have been receiving a lot of friend requests from people from different countries around the world.

“Occasionally, you get one or two of these a month. Recently, there have been quite a lot of friend requests. However, with these, I decline the friend request and delete.

“I am happy to hear that Facebook is looking into this and I hope we hear the outcome very soon.”

The National received a flood of phone calls from concerned readers reporting that their Facebook pages had been hacked with porn appearing on their timelines.

People are being tricked into opening dodgy porn links after receiving messages purporting to be from Facebook friends informing them they have been tagged in a photo or video.

When unwitting victims open these messages they are faced with sickening pornographic material, and when a link is clicked, the images are dispersed to the user’s friends and family without them knowing and some said it has sparked a virus which spread through their device.

The victims of the cyber attack said that they had reported it to Facebook but nothing had been done and it was still happening.

However, Facebook vowed to investigate after being contacted by The National on Friday and a probe is under way.

Hamilton praised The National for highlighting their plight and hoped it would help stop their Facebook pages being hacked.

SNP member and grandmother Tracy Scott, 48, from Glasgow, feared the images could be seen by her grandchildren and said she was angry that Facebook had ignored their reports of hacking.

Scott said: “When you open the message that says you’ve been tagged you can plainly see it is a porn video.

“One of the images had below it saying ‘stepdad’s having sex with his daughter’ but thankfully I didn’t open the link. Every morning I’ve been waking up to these messages. Lots of my friends are getting them as well and they are all starting to crack up about it.

“I just untagged myself straight away because I don’t want my friends thinking that I’m watching porn when I’m absolutely not because it shows up on your Facebook account.

“As soon as you open the link it spreads like wildfire right through your friends and they get sent messages from you that they have been tagged on a photo or video.

“A lot of people have got their children and grandchildren on Facebook so the last thing you want is your grandchildren to see something like that on your account or be sent any of the material. It is disgusting.”