Planned Parenthood is trying to do serious damage control since the release of four videos (so far) from the Center for Medical Progress, which reveal executives discussing the selling of the body parts of aborted babies – a federal crime. And someone at Planned Parenthood must have thought that turning the abortion giant into the victim would help turn things around, and put out the word that they had been targeted by hackers. This week, several of Planned Parenthood’s websites bore the following message:
But was their website really hacked?
The first cracks in their story started to show when someone on Twitter began to get skeptical.
1. PP changes landing page to – “see what happens, hacked!” 2. Learn more” Link on page leads to Facebook campaign. Total PR smear job
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) July 30, 2015
The more he dug, the worse it looked for Planned Parenthood.
Their site is so hacked right now that someone has been rearranging CSS fonts and alignment. pic.twitter.com/7vxO4siXJH
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) July 30, 2015
We were hacked but not really hacked but we had to make it look like we were hacked because shit this all looks bad just take it down.
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) July 30, 2015
So their site wasn’t actually down when they said it was down but now it’s actually down down. #FTPFTW pic.twitter.com/w4AI63sgkk
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) July 30, 2015
PP’s homepage at :05 & :45 after . My screenshots. This is so much fun. pic.twitter.com/M8EXDpv5FG
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) July 30, 2015
For people that claimed to be “hacked”, they sure seemed prepared to capitalize on the “attack”:
They even titled their landing page “Campaigns” and misspelled “Template” in source coding. Hilarious. pic.twitter.com/OY6NZzBDvd
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) July 30, 2015
They titled the source page category “Campaigns” …ROFL…
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) July 30, 2015
This hack was so sudden and caught them so off guard they had a completely scripted html page titled “Campaigns” ready to go just in case.
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) July 30, 2015
Another Twitter user noted that Planned Parenthood was busy crying wolf on Facebook, too:
LOL! Actually @PPact changed their facebook post about the fake “hacking” FOUR TIMES. Wow you suck at false attacks. pic.twitter.com/hvprhrWnuV
— el Sooper ن (@SooperMexican) July 30, 2015
Interestingly, though Planned Parenthood claims to be hacked, they are able to accept donations just fine.
All together, things look pretty suspicious.
A review of the source code of the main page that appears at PlannedParenthood.org shows that as of 9:30 a.m. today, the page is listed as a “Campaign” and uses a specific template named “Site Down Tempalte” (the typo is theirs). The same page then directs visitors to the Facebook page of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the political fundraising arm of the nation’s largest abortion provider. The web page for PPAF–which can be accessed via both plannedparenthoodaction.org and ppaction.org–repeats the same hacking claims and contains the exact same source code and template used on the PlannedParenthood.org page.
And that’s where Planned Parenthood’s hacking facade begins to crumble. On the splash page declaring that the organization was hacked, visitors are asked “Why do you stand with Planned Parenthood” and invited to share their stories on a separate page housed at ppaction.org.
And wouldn’t you know it, that page functions perfectly. No sign of hacking. No sign of intrusion. Just a perfectly functional and secure web page that exists solely to build Planned Parenthood’s mailing list.
This supposed attack comes right around the same time that Planned Parenthood hired a new PR firm, SKDKnickerbocker, which promptly sent out a memo to the media instructing them not to cover any videos released by the Center for Medical Progress in the future. Was this hack job cooked up by someone at SKDKnickerbocker? And whoever planned to claim that Planned Parenthood was hacked, why would they not try to cover their tracks more? They don’t even seem to be trying to hide the fact that this was a fake attack, created to raise money and gain sympathy.
The question is, will the public fall for it, or see right through their games?
