Officials at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, now say that someone with access to the official base Twitter account was behind a series of "inappropriate" tweets posted Wednesday. They had originally reported that the account had been hacked.
"This morning, at the initiation of an investigation into yesterday's incident regarding inappropriate tweets on the Fort Bragg Twitter account, an administrator for the account identified himself as the source of the tweets," said Col. Joe Buccino, spokesman for 18th Airborne Corps, which is headquartered at the base.
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"Appropriate action is underway. The Fort Bragg account will be restored in the coming days," Buccino said Thursday in an email to Military.com.
The Fort Bragg account responded to a user, asking about his OnlyFans preference. OnlyFans is a subscription-based website, requiring a monthly fee to access content. That content is primarily adult-only, though chefs, athletes and others also provide subscriber channels.
In the same Twitter thread, the user posted a photo depicting a naked woman; the Fort Bragg account replied that he would like to fondle that woman.
Military personalities and journalists took note and began tweeting at Fort Bragg. Before shuttering the Twitter account, Fort Bragg posted that it believed the account had been hacked.
"This was not the work of our admins," Fort Bragg initially said Wednesday. "Our account was hacked. We apologize to our followers."
The snafu comes amid multiple investigations into how troops are portraying themselves online.
In August, Fort Bragg initiated an investigation into Army 2nd Lt. Nathan Freihofer, who used his TikTok account -- a video-sharing social media platform -- to spread a hateful Holocaust joke while appearing to render a Nazi salute.
The video made its way onto Twitter, igniting a storm of angry comments.
"This person is in the military?" one reader commented. "This person is trusted to handle weapons and protect this country? This person lacks character."
Freihofer is a popular TikTok influencer with 2.9 million followers.
"*Videos do not represent the US ARMY," his TikTok profile reads, but many of his videos feature him in his Army camouflage working uniform.
Buccino confirmed to Military.com at the time that Freihofer is assigned to the 18th Airborne Corps.
"The statement made in the video is completely inconsistent with our values," the 18th Airborne Corps said. "We will review all facts and take appropriate action."
-- Matthew Cox contributed to this report.
-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @oriana0214.
