真真假假: 奥巴马遇袭的谣言引发美股巨震

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.

美国股市周二下午遭遇短暂但剧烈的抛售，原因是一家新闻通讯社被黑客侵入的Twitter账户发布虚假帖子称，白宫遭到恐怖主义袭击。

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

美联社(Associated Press)主要账户贴出的这条假消息对数百万跟随者称，巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)总统在爆炸中受伤。

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.

这起事件是一个迹象，表明Twitter对投资者的影响力不断上升，同时也暴露了通过社交媒体渠道发布不准确信息所带来的风险。

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.

就在几周前，美国股市监管机构刚刚允许企业利用社交媒体与投资者沟通，并允许彭博(Bloomberg)通讯社将精选的Twitter帖子纳入其面向交易员的终端。

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.”

美联社的Twitter账户拥有190万跟随者，并带有网站的“经过核实”真实性盖章。该账户在美东时间下午1时7分发帖称：“突发新闻：白宫发生两起爆炸，巴拉克•奥巴马受伤。”

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.

几分钟内，@AP的档案就被暂停，而这家新闻通讯社的其它账户称，那篇不实报道是黑客攻击的结果。

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

白宫新闻发言人证实，华盛顿没有发生袭击事件。

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.

不过，这一警报足以使道琼斯工业指数(Dow Jones Industrial Average)暴跌130点。这一股指的跌幅接近1%，但随即恢复原来的水平。