Facebook porn embarrasses PC candidate in Alberton

A P.E.I. Progressive Conservative candidate is apologizing after pornographic links were posted to his Facebook page.

David Gordon, the PC candidate for Alberton-Roseville, said Thursday that he had no idea how the adult links got there. Gordon has more than 700 "friends" on the site, but said he is not computer savvy.

"I didn't even know how to get to the site where they were. I don't how they got there and I didn't even know how to get them off," he said.

Gordon did not immediately remove the links Tuesday because he was at a Tory caucus meeting in Charlottetown.

PC Leader Olive Crane said the caucus discussed internet safety.

"We certainly were talking about Facebook the dangers of Facebook," she said, "how you have to have special training and know exactly what you're doing with the site."

Gordon, who operates a tour bus business out of Alberton, won the Tory nomination for the district last week.

He believes someone may have hacked into his site to embarrass him, but he doesn't know if it's politically motivated.

"I hope politics was not involved. Certainly I'm not going to be running my campaign like that. My campaign is going to be clean," he said.

Lots of ways to get hacked

Tim Jenkins, who runs a company called Computer Resource, said getting onto someone's Facebook account and making changes can be pretty easy.

"There's a lot of ways that can happen. Most people think it's the hacker in Taiwan or something, but obviously in this case it's a little bit more personal," he said.

"[It could be] from posting from your phone, if somebody has access to your phone, because they're normally logged into social websites without putting in any usernames."

He said someone could also work out your password or see you type it in a public setting. Failing to log out means the next person at the computer may be able to use your account.

It is not the first time Island politicians have had Facebook troubles. In 2010, Education Minister Doug Currie's page was hacked and it sent porn links to more than 1,000 of his Facebook "friends."