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Hardcore porn replaced CNN for a half hour on Thanksgiving night

Updated Nov 25th, 2016 6:51PM EST
cnn accident
Image: CNN

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Nobody likes working on Thanksgiving, but someone has to man the ship when you provide a 24/7 service like cable television. Unfortunately for RCN, a cable provider in Boston, someone may have fallen asleep at the wheel, because at least one of its customers got a shocking treat when they tried to tune into CNN.

Twitter users Solikearose attempted to watch Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, but instead found herself staring at some extremely graphic pornography. The hardcore porn appeared to be coming through just like any other television program, and despite the fact that the on-screen guide said she was watching CNN, the content speaks for itself. 

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https://twitter.com/solikearose/status/802002883910701056

After about a half hour of the unexpected porn, things took another unexpected turn. “We have two tvs, both with TiVo boxes,” Solikearose told BGR via Twitter. “Only checked one tv at the time, but CNN is blacked out on both units now.”

RCN, which provides cable, internet, and phone services in several markets mostly on the east coast, didn’t initially acknowledge the strange occurrence, though it did reach out to Solikearose to say that nobody else had reported anything similar.

If accurate, it would suggest that either nobody watches Parts Unknown, or that there was an issue with her specific equipment.

If it weren’t for the wealth of photographic evidence provided by Solikearose via her Twitter feed, it might be easy to dismiss this as a joke or prank, but it’s hard to imagine someone going through the effort to photoshop an on-screen programming guide onto a half dozen different porn screenshots just for a chuckle.

Update: A statement by RCN’s SVP Jeff Carlson follows the company’s claim on Twitter that the incident appears to have been isolated to a single individual. “We are in the process of researching this incident but see no evidence our CNN network feed was compromised last evening in Boston,” said Carlson.