It’s the second-largest licensee of FM radio stations in the U.S. And, it has a presence in nearly every U.S. market thanks to its noncommercial Christian Contemporary Music and Worship Music networks.
Now, it is dealing with a social media hack that has impacted its Facebook pages for weeks.
In a letter to listeners first shared by RadioInsight.com, Educational Media Foundation‘s K-LOVE shared that posts on its Facebook page and those for related programming, including the K-Love Morning Show, include posts of late “that don’t match our usual messages of hope and encouragement.”
Why? K-LOVE reveals that on December 26, “unauthorized content started showing up on our Facebook pages in a way that looks like it’s from us, even though it’s not.”
EMF and the K-LOVE team “immediately took action, attempting to remove the content while contacting Facebook for help.” They also confirmed that this incident is isolated to Facebook and “is not impacting any of our internal systems.”
That’s good news, as several broadcast media companies in the last several years have fallen victim to crippling cyberattacks, shutting down audio delivery systems. In the case of Cox Media Group, all radio and TV streaming was silenced for a long period.
When will EMF regain total control of its Facebook page? “Unfortunately, the situation is still not resolved and we are unable to remove the content and stop new posts from appearing at this time,” K-LOVE shares. “Please know that we are doing everything we can to fix the situation as quickly as possible.”
Meanwhile, the K-LOVE team apologized for the content, as “it does not reflect the positive encouragement we work so hard to provide. We sincerely apologize if any of these posts have reached you or your family.”
As of Friday (1/13) all posts on the main K-LOVE page are all older than December 26, 2022. However, Skip & Amy and the K-LOVE Morning Show Facebook page contains some posts one may not associate with an EMF property. One notes that Kelly Clarkson “is a mother who spanks her kids if they don’t behave.” Another is a gossip-driven piece from “GAZABFACT.IN” suggesting actress Shannen Doherty “has started saying goodbye to her family” due to ongoing health issues. These posts were made late Thursday (1/12).
Other “GAZABFACT.IN” posts can be found across the K-LOVE Morning Show page.
The incident follows a 2017 series of hacks involving K-LOVE Member station WKLV-FM in Port Chester, N.Y., in the New York City market. At that time, the audio signal was compromised, followed by a RDS takeover with derisive and obscene messages regarding then-President Trump.
