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Ghost in the Shell X/Twitter Account Apparently Hacked for Real Before Laughing Man Incident's Date

The ever-popular franchise Ghost in the Shell reaches a seminal date in its history on February 3. This is when the Laughing Man incident happens in the 2002 series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (popularly known as S.A.C.). The franchise's staff is marking the date with a free streaming and a Tokyo screening of The Laughing Man compilation. But someone apparently jumped the gun on the celebrations by hacking the official Ghost in the Shell X (formerly Twitter) account — for real — on January 28.

An initial statement about the hacking was released on the official website and later uploaded to its linked social networks service (SNS) accounts. Thankfully, according to the official translation of the statement, there were “no reports of damage caused by the unauthorized access, but we will continue to investigate and strengthen the security of other official ‘Ghost in the Shell’ SNSs as well.”

On January 30, the website released a subsequent statement. The staff announced that the official X/Twitter account had been restored at 12:00 p.m. on January 30 with the help of the X company. In the official translation of the statement, the Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 Committee and Kodansha's Young Magazine apologized for any misinformation that was released on the platform when they did not have control: “We apologize for the inconvenience caused to our fans by [any] misleading report[s], which seemed to look like a promotional plan since the animation and manga is related to the matter and the timeline when the damage occurred.”

Sources: Ghost in the Shell franchise's website (link 2), X/Twitter account, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 anime's X/Twitter account via Hachima Kikō