Following an alleged hack by members of Anonymous, Fox News had posted a tweet that claimed US president Barack Obama had been shot dead.

The tweet, which read: "BREAKING NEWS: President @BarackObama assassinated, 2 gunshot wounds have proved too much. It's a sad 4th for #america. #obamadead RIP.", appeared on its feed around 2 am this morning. 

Fox News also sent a message prior wishing people a happy 4 July and claiming that they had just "regained full access to our Twitter and email". 

Posts such as: "@BarackObama has just passed. Nearly 45 minutes ago, he was shot twice in the lower pelvic area and in the neck; shooter unknown. Bled out." were to follow.

The group, known as 'scriptkiddies' has been tied loosely with Anonymous. A piece on Stony Brook Universities' Think Magazine quotes a representative as saying: " I would consider us to be close in relation [to Anonymous], 2 of the members of our group were members of Anonymous,” 

The hacktivist group is acting out of part of the AntiSec campaign which seeks out and exposes information that they believe the public should know. The other half of the campaign, LulzSec, has now gone quiet.

Unlike the slightly less serious PBS news hour attack by LulzSec, which claimed Tupac was still alive in New Zealand, this has gone massively viral. The tweet has been spread out rapidly from Fox News's 33,000 followers. 

The group have warned that more Fox News attacks are possible. So for now if you see anything particularly unusual, perhaps best not to trust its Twitter feeds. 

Fan of internet tomfoolery? Or is something like this simply not fair?