This is what DeRuiters account used to look like.
This is what DeRuiter's account looked like before it got hacked.

Update: More than a day after she was initially hacked and locked out, Geraldine DeRuiter's Twitter access has been restored. Looks like her tweet history is still partially deleted, but here's what she had to say about the hack:



Last week, Seattle-based writer Geraldine DeRuiter published a piece on the pizza cinnamon roll recipe that Mario Batali attached to a tone-deaf apology for sexual misconduct. The piece, which documented an actual attempt at making the rolls while providing a funny, feminist meditation on the moment, racked up more than a million visits to DeRuiter's blog and went viral on social media.

But on Sunday morning, DeRuiter woke up to find she couldn't access her Twitter account.

She also noticed that her profile photo, cover image and name had been changed. DeRuiter's pinned tweet had been altered to one that bragged of a hack (with a racial slur). DeRuiter watched as her Twitter history—her main avenue for sharing and advertising her work—started to disappear.

Before Geraldine DeRuiters Twitter account was set to private, her account displayed this pinned tweet.
Before Geraldine DeRuiter's Twitter account was set to private, her account displayed this pinned tweet.

This is what DeRuiters account looks like now.
This is what DeRuiter's account looks like now.

DeRuiter contacted Twitter customer support yesterday and today. Twitter support told her that before she could lodge her complaint, she had to write to Twitter from an e-mail address associated with her account. DeRuiter sent Twitter all the e-mail addresses previously associated with the account, but believes hackers changed the e-mail address linked to her Twitter. Now, DeRuiter's account has been made private. And she's still locked out.

"I think [Twitter's] automated system cannot handle actual human interactions," DeRuiter said. "I'm trying to interact with Twitter's system and that's not going through."

DeRuiter said her husband, cofounder of software company Moz, told DeRuiter he believed her account had been hacked by a bot, and that it was related to the Batali article.

"All I have from Twitter is this ticket that I've submitted with them, but I haven't talked to a single human," DeRuiter said. "Basically all my technology is making me very paranoid right now, so I've spent the last two days changing all my passwords. And my husband is telling me it looks like it was a targeted attack."

The Stranger has reached out to Twitter and will update when we hear back.