真真假假: 奧巴馬遇襲的謠言引發美股巨震

US equity markets suffered a brief but violent sell-off after a news agency’s hacked Twitter account posted a fake tweet about a terrorist attack on the White House.

美國股市週二下午遭遇短暫但劇烈的拋售，原因是一家新聞通訊社被黑客侵入的Twitter賬戶發佈虛假帖子稱，白宮遭到恐怖主義襲擊。

The bogus posting from Associated Press’s main account told its millions of followers President Barack Obama had been injured in an explosion.

美聯社(Associated Press)主要賬戶貼出的這條假消息對數百萬跟隨者稱，巴拉克•奧巴馬(Barack Obama)總統在爆炸中受傷。

The incident is a sign of the growing influence of Twitter on investors and the risks associated with inaccurate information being distributed through social media channels.

這起事件是一個跡象，表明Twitter對投資者的影響力不斷上升，同時也暴露了通過社交媒體渠道發佈不準確信息所帶來的風險。

It comes just weeks after the US stock market regulator gave companies permission to use social media to communicate with investors and news agency Bloomberg’s move to pull selected tweets into its terminals for traders.

就在幾周前，美國股市監管機構剛剛允許企業利用社交媒體與投資者溝通，並允許彭博(Bloomberg)通訊社將精選的Twitter帖子納入其面向交易員的終端。

AP’s Twitter account, which has 1.9m followers and carries the site’s “verified” stamp of authenticity, posted at 1.07pm Eastern Time: “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.”

美聯社的Twitter賬戶擁有190萬跟隨者，並帶有網站的“經過覈實”真實性蓋章。該賬戶在美東時間下午1時7分發帖稱：“突發新聞：白宮發生兩起爆炸，巴拉克•奧巴馬受傷。”

Within minutes, @AP’s profile was suspended and other accounts associated with the news agency said the inaccurate report was the result of a hacking attack.

幾分鐘內，@AP的檔案就被暫停，而這家新聞通訊社的其它賬戶稱，那篇不實報道是黑客攻擊的結果。

The White House’s press secretary confirmed there had been no attack in Washington.

白宮新聞發言人證實，華盛頓沒有發生襲擊事件。

However, the alarm was enough to knock more than 130 points off the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The index fell just under 1 per cent before recovering moments later.

不過，這一警報足以使道瓊斯工業指數(Dow Jones Industrial Average)暴跌130點。這一股指的跌幅接近1%，但隨即恢復原來的水平。