Articles on major websites including Stuff and the New Zealand Herald have had uncensored, hardcore pornography embedded in them after a porn company bought the domain name of defunct video hosting service Vidme.
Twitter user dox_gay noticed 5 Star Porn HD had bought the domain name, resulting in "NSFW porn all over the regular internet where [Vidme] links were embedded".
Vidme was founded in 2014 and grouped user-uploaded videos into community-curated categories, like a hybrid between YouTube and Reddit.
But the site was closed in 2017 after failing to find a sustainable financial model amid increased competition. It was then purchased by Giphy, the popular GIF-sharing website, which has since allowed the domain name to expire.
Existing vid.me embeds are now directed to the homepage of the pornography site with explicit images. Newshub has seen several examples, including a NZ Herald article on Lorde hitting the top of the charts with 'Magnets' and a Stuff article about a Taylor Swift concert.
Other major websites around the world that have been impacted include The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Huffington Post, Fox Sports, Intelligencer and Uproxx.
Some of the embeds have now been removed, but many remain live at the time of publishing.
Newshub contacted NZ Herald and Stuff to inform them of the issue and ask for comment.
"We have removed that video and are completing a sweep of the site to ensure there is no other offending material," a Stuff spokesperson said.
NZ Herald is yet to respond.
