When Facebook Attacks: Bart Blatstein Page Hacked, Hilarity Ensues
How on earth do you steal a piano? That’s just what we were wondering when we saw last week’s Facebook post from the account associated with The Playground, that strange Atlantic City entertainment complex from prominent Philly developer Bart Blatstein.
“Someone stole both of our pianos over the weekend,” read the post. “Please let us know if anyone knows who fenced them from us. Currently we are now using an old piano we borrowed from a local elementary school and 25 key Casio keyboard. We apologize in advance.”
Comments began to pour in from haters, and it didn’t take long for it to become apparent that something was amiss.
“You pieces of shit are probably part of the operation who robbed our pianos,” went a subsequent message from the account. “Bunch of pussies.”
And: “You people are real fucking assholes. We will be pressing charges on any of you who have posted about stealing them.”
Don’t worry. It turns out that the only crime that has been committed is the apparent hijacking of The Playground’s Facebook page.
“No pianos were ever stolen,” says Lisa Johnson, who handles publicity for The Playground. “The person posing as the Playground Pier’s social media rep made that post.”
That same person has apparently been in control of the Facebook page for quite a while. Back in September, the page shared an embarrassing story we wrote about Bart Blatstein’s wife filing for divorce. (She later called off the divorce.)
Blatstein’s social media team set up a new Facebook page for The Playground, but with 13,000-plus followers on the original page and less than 300 likes on the new page, they really just want the old one back.
“We haven’t had any luck,” explains actual Playground social media manager Ray Sheehan. “We’ve reached out to Facebook, but we haven’t been able to have any discussion with them about it.”
So who would do such a thing? A disgruntled employee? The person who wrote this one-star Yelp review?
“An investigation is underway to find the culprit,” Johnson tells us.
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