One Direction burst onto the music scene by proving that there was still a place for "clean cut, wholesome, whiter-than-white, middle class parent friendly pop" on the airwaves, according to The Daily Telegraph's Neil McCormick. It raises a considerable number of eyebrows, then, when one of the lads' Facebook pages starts serving up pornographic images.
Liam Payne, it appears, had his account compromised, and the person or people behind the attack defaced the singer's page with numerous explicit images. To be clear, the images were not of Payne himself. His attacker(s) also posted links to questionable "viral" websites. All of the offending content has since been deleted, though screen captures or Payne's vandalized page are still circulating on sites like Twitter.
This isn't the first time a member of One Direction has been involved in a controversy involving pornography on a social networking site. Two years ago, Payne's bandmate Harry Styles claims to have accidentally favorited a pornographic tweet by another user. It caused quite the uproar -- much of it laughter -- before Styles realized his mistake, unfavorited the post, and started tagging cute kitten pictures instead.
Payne's also not alone when it comes to an account breach like this pushing explicit images. Just last month, Sir Patrick Stewart was targeted in a similar attack. Stewart's Twitter profile photo was changed and his 2.3 million followers were shown selfies of a naked woman standing in a bathtub, again with accompanying links to shady websites.
Celebrity profiles will remain a popular target due to their reach. Hopefully their advisors start teaching them about things like two-factor authentication, how to spot phishing emails, and the importance of not answering password reset questions with factual information that can be looked up online.
