SENIOR government minister Christopher Pyne has blamed a hacker “making mischief of the plebiscite” for a rogue like on his Twitter profile discovered early this morning.

As celebrations over Wednesday’s historic vote for same-sex marriage wore on into the morning, about 2am, the South Australian MP’s Twitter profile “liked” a tweet linking to a video showing explicit gay porn.

media_camera The tweet has since been unliked.

Astute Twitter users noticed the rogue like, which appeared to be out of keeping with Mr Pyne’s usual social media activity which usually sees him use the function to save or show appreciation for tweets, pictures, and videos about political developments and the Adelaide Crows.

While followers had fun with the tweet for a few hours, the Defence Industry Minister moved to shut down the controversy at 5am when he said he woke to the news.

I was hacked overnight! I was 😴 at 2am. Someone tried to hack my social media yesterday. Maybe they are making mischief over the plebiscite? — Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) November 15, 2017

media_camera Who, me? Christopher Pyne said he was asleep when his account liked the offending tweet. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

“I was hacked overnight!” Mr Pyne said in a tweet, saying he had been asleep at 2am when the suspicious social media activity took place.

“Someone tried to hack my social media yesterday. Maybe they are making mischief over the plebiscite?”

Ahead of the postal survey, Mr Pyne pledged his support for the Yes vote, and even assured Liberal supporters at a private function earlier in the year that marriage equality would happen “sooner than everyone thinks”.

media_camera Christopher Pyne is a keen supporter of marriage reform, but said that had nothing to do with his rogue Twitter activity overnight. Picture: Kym Smith

Not everyone was buying the minister’s excuse for his account’s unusual Twitter move, though.

Replies to his early morning excuse ranged from “lol sure” and “come on”, to “even my three-year-old knows when he’s been naughty. Be accountable for your actions”.

Mr Pyne is only the latest public figure claiming to have been the victim of porn-liking hackers.

The Australian Border Force was asked to explain why its commissioner’s official Twitter account appeared to like a pornographic tweet earlier this year.

The incident followed a similar scandal in the US, where Republican Senator Ted Cruz’s account had liked a pornographic post.

Rather than blaming a hack, the 2016 presidential candidate blamed the errant like on a “staffing issue”.

Originally published as Gay porn tweet embarrasses minister