A group calling itself the Script Kiddies claimed responsibility for hacking the Fox News Twitter account, according to Adam Peck, the outgoing editor of Think, an online student magazine operated at Stony Brook University on Long Island, who said he had communicated via instant message early Monday with a member of the group.

The Script Kiddies, Mr. Peck said, had posted to its own Twitter account that it hacked the political Twitter account of Fox News and wanted to speak to The Huffington Post, supplying an address at the instant-messaging service AIM. Mr. Peck, 23, said he figured he would try the address as well.

The first conversation took place around 12:38 a.m., Mr. Peck said, before the inflammatory posts to Twitter appeared. “We did ask them what their purpose was,” Mr. Peck said. “They said that they did align themselves with Anonymous and the antisec movement,” he added, meaning “antisecurity movement,” or efforts intended to uncover information corporations or governments seek to hide.

In the instant message, the person claiming to be a representative of the Script Kiddies said to Mr. Peck that there “will always be a group of people that need to stand up for everyone else and attempt to keep the governments in balance with its people.” The person claimed to be a former member of the better-known hacker group Anonymous.

According to the instant-message record, which Mr. Peck provided to The New York Times, the person with whom he communicated at Script Kiddies said that Fox News “was selected because we figured their security would be just as much of a joke as their reporting.”

Mr. Peck said he again contacted to the Script Kiddies when the first postings about the president were published, asking if the group had hacked the Twitter feed.

Mr. Peck said he received a message in response: “I cannot confirm that at this time. Stay tuned.”

Adding to the confusion, the Twitter account for the Script Kiddies at some point seemed to disappear, Mr. Peck said. He said he started “frantically searching elsewhere to find corroboration of this story.” But after 10 minutes of not finding it anywhere online, he said he figured it was the work of the Script Kiddies.