What is Going on With Dubuque Kennedy Mall’s Facebook Page?

With the news of five new stores coming to Dubuque's Kennedy Mall, I went over to their Facebook page to find more information. Then something odd happened...

The usual Facebook page for Kennedy Mall wasn't popping up in my dropdown search menu, nor was it to be found with a full-blown search of Facebook. Instead, I found another page that didn't resemble a mall or any place of business. It resembled a Pinterest poem-wall, with dozens of photos of random poems littering a Facebook wall that should be reserved for things related to the mall.

That's when I realized: Kennedy Mall's Facebook page has likely been hacked.

Visitors to the mall's Facebook page will instead find a page called "Whispers Verse." The page is littered with weepy-eyed, broken-hearted poetry written by Montana-based poet Whitney Hanson, who is getting a hell of a lot of promotion from this, I must say. Each post is accompanied by several dozen shares, suggesting that those seeing these posts have no idea that they belong to Kennedy Mall's Facebook account.

Either Whitney Hanson herself is trying some new viral marketing scheme out, or someone with a broken heart wanted a considerably large platform with which to cope with the loss of a lover.

Digging through what feels like miles of photos of poems on a printed page, it seems that whomever runs "Whispers Verse" took over the mall's Facebook page on/around September 16th, 2024. Since then, there has been nothing but poems flooding the page. Kennedy Mall's website also makes no mention of the abrupt disruption to their Facebook page.

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Back in April, the Iowa Department of Transportation's Twitter/X account was hacked. Those who visited the Iowa DOT's X account page that fateful day were greeted with the logo/advertisements for Renzo, an online cryptocurrency platform.

That's usually the case when a Facebook, X, or another account for a popular business or agency gets hacked. It's to promote something spam-related, like crypto. Sometimes it's politically motivated. I, for one, remember when social media hackings were kind of humorous. Back in 2013, somebody hacked Burger King's Twitter account, changed their profile picture to McDonald's, and subsequently started posting cheeky (and vulgar) tweets directed at the fictional overtaking.

Seeing a Facebook page overtaken to promote sad, scorned poetry is a first for me. Who knows when/if Kennedy Mall will recoup their Facebook page, which has over 11,000 likes. The fact that it's been up in its current, "Whispers Verse" state for well-over a week is not necessarily a great sign.

See the Kennedy Mall's Facebook page for yourself...