One of the offensive messages that was left overnight on the National Lottery Twitter account

A National Lottery campaign was hijacked overnight and people have been leaving pretty horrific messages.

Camelot is running a British Athletics Twitter campaign with pictures of athletes holding boards saying their name.

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However, some people have taken it as an opportunity to post offensive messages in place of people’s names.

The National Lottery has regained control of the account, but the damage already appears to have been done.


They said this morning: ‘We are aware that some people are maliciously targeting our British Athletics Twitter campaign with offensive and abhorrent content.

‘We are dealing with this as quickly as possible and are hugely sorry for any offence caused by this malicious act.’



The campaign was launched to highlight the help that athletes get from the National Lottery.

They asked people to retweet its #Represent post celebrating athletes’ achievements.

People who retweeted the message were rewarded with an automated thank you from athletes holding their name on a banner.

However some people changed their names to things like Raoul Moat, I have Maddie and Saville is innocent.

Some targeted Margaret Thatcher and six-year-old cancer victim Bradley Lowery while others pointed suggested that the person behind the campaign may be looking for a new job.

One message said: ‘Clear your desk M8′ another targeted Hillsborough saying ’96 wasn’t enough’.

Walkers Crisps had a similar PR disaster earlier this year when people were invited to send selfies that would be held up by Gary Lineker.

However, people hijacked that campaign by sending in images of criminals and dictators instead.

This is why you can’t have nice things.