This week, hundreds of thousands of viewers tuned in to watch Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez play the viral video game Among Us on Twitch, with an all-star cast brought together with the help of Chelsea Manning and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Just days after the wholesome footage aired though, Among Us has been targeted with a massive hack that spams players with messages in support of Donald Trump.
In case you’re still catching up, Among Us is a murder mystery-style game set in space, which sees up to ten players join a lobby. One or two of these players are impostors, and try to murder the others without getting found out – the innocent have to work together to complete tasks and vote to kick suspicious players off the ship.
When AOC joined a lobby earlier this week – alongside Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her daughter, the climate activist Isra Hirsi – it provided the perfect opportunity to garner support for the Democrats in the upcoming election with jokes about voting (namely: orange sus, vote him out).
First reported on Thursday evening, however, the hacker spammed pro-Trump messages in the in-game chat, through other players’ avatars. Besides political messages, they also promoted various online accounts under the same handle: “subscribe to eris loris.”
In response to hundreds of screenshots of the hack shared via Twitter, the Among Us developers InnerSloth have rolled out “emergency maintenance”. In a Twitter post, they advise users to remain careful for the time being, writing: “Please play private games or with people that you trust!”