NEW YORK — Somebody hacked Burger King’s Twitter account Monday, posting profane messages and changing its profile picture to a McDonald’s logo.
The tweets stopped after a little more than an hour, and Burger King said it had asked Twitter to suspend the account. Burger King, which tweets several times a week — promoting sales or asking how many bites it takes to eat a chicken nugget, for example.
Just past noon, someone tweeted via Burger King’s account that ‘‘We just got sold to McDonalds!’’ The account’s background picture: McDonald’s new Fish McBites.
About 55 tweets and retweets followed, including racial epithets, references to drug use, and profanities. The account tweeted: ‘‘if I catch you at a wendys, we’re fightin!’’
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Late Monday, Burger King tweeted: ‘‘Interesting day here at BURGER KING, but we’re back! Welcome to our new followers. Hope you all stick around!’’
Burger King did not know who hacked the account, and no other social media accounts were affected, a spokesman for Burger King Worldwide Inc. said. Burker King planned to post a statement on Facebook apologizing for the tweets.
Burger King’s rivals were sympathetic. McDonald’s responded on Twitter that it empathized. ‘‘My real life nightmare is playing out’’ on BK’s Twitter feed, wrote Wendy’s social media worker Amy Rose Brown.