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CNN ticker shows tweets from joke accounts like 'Dixie Normus' in New Year's eve prank

'Your intern working on NYE deserves a raise @cnn,' read a tweet mocking the news channel

New Year’s eve seemed to be quite 'lively' on CNN – from drunk Don Lemon ranting about his “haters” during the celebration's live stream to Andy Cohen calling the outgoing New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, a “horrible mayor”. But apparently, it was a Twitter troll who stole the limelight on air. Reportedly, the troll account along with multiple fake accounts with stupid names tricked the news channel into airing fake and vulgar tweets while New Year's eve party was live.

The broadcast’s live celebration susposedly had tweets from “Ben Dover” (the psedonym for an English pornographic actor), “Mike Oxlong” (a joke name to make people say "My C**k's Long") and “Dixie Normus” (another joke name, similar to the one used by Gwyneth Paltrow's character in an Austin Powers film). The ridiculous Twitter account names appeared below the screen while CNN began a live countdown to the end of 2021, which was hosted by  Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen. One such tweet from @DixieNormussss at 10 pm stated, “Another shot @Andy.” Another tweet from @BenDover837 at 11:34 pm read, “Regina King is slaying the game looking better than ever!” “Regina is wonderful! Love her as well as Andy and Anderson of course,” a tweet from @Shun86LGM at 11:20 pm said.

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A TikTok user, @good_distance,  reportedly made a video of the live stream along with the fake tweets at the bottom of the screen and shared it online. The same video also made its way to Twitter, where the appalled TikToker can be heard commenting on the tweets. After the Twitter account @TikTokInvestors shared the video and wrote, “Your intern working on NYE deserves a raise @cnn,” it has been viewed more than 70k times. 

A number of people reacted to the vulgar 'fake tweets'. One person remarked, “Prob couldn't risk the let's go Brandon's popping up on CNN. The user base would have had a meltdown.” Another one said, “CNN doesnt even screen its employees you think their going to screen tweets.” Responding to this, a Twitter user replied: “That is the single most valid point that could possibly be made. You have won the internet for this week. Everyone else go home, thank you all for playing.” “Best thing I've seen today! Bahahaha,  thank you,”  read another tweet.

A person shared, “Mike Hunt must have been extremely disappointed not to get the role.” Another one stated, “No point tagging @CNN , they don’t reply to emails let alone being tagged on Fintwit.” “I’ll be watching more CNN if they keep doing this!” added a third user.

A Daily Beast report said that they did the research and found that all the accounts were linked to each other, “sharing what cybersecurity investigators typically refer to as ‘shared infrastructure.’” The report went on to explain that “the seven Twitter accounts Anita Dump, Ben Dover, Dixie Normus, Harry Cox, Hugh Jass, Mike Oxlong and Seymour Butts each follow very few accounts — but nearly all follow one another. All of them bombarded Twitter with the hashtag #CNNNYE to get noticed by CNN and seemed created solely for that purpose. All but one account only tweeted last night, and only toward CNN.” The article added: “The master account appears to be @MikeOxLong625, as it was created back in February 2021, while all the others were started in December. It also has the largest number of connections and tweets all kinds of random subjects. In fact, the account describes itself as ‘The real king of CNN Twitter and #CNNNYE."