BBC News app goes SEO crazy in 'error' notifications, 'no nudity in Game of Thrones'

The much-loved BBC News application for iPhone sent out two strange breaking news notifications earlier today to all devices, which it has since admitted was an "error" as part of an apology.

On of the pushed notification's content reads like the best SEO headline you could possibly imagine, even throwing a Game of Thrones reference in there for good measure: "NYPD Twitter campaign 'backfires' after hashtag hijacked. Push sucks! Pull blows! BREAKING NEWS No nudity in latest episode of Game of Thrones!!! MORE BREAKING NEWS IIIIII like testing," it said.

As soon as it had started to appear on user's iPhones, screengrabs started to appear on Twitter. Pocket-lint was also sent one by a reader who alerted us to the BBC's mistake.

At first, some presumed that, while the notification mentioned hacking, the BBC News app itself had been hacked. The Beeb has since denied this. "This was a result of a testing error," it claimed via the BBC Press Office Twitter feed. "The account has not been hacked."

It also issued a full apology on the BBC News website: "We apologise for previous two test push notifications from BBC News which were sent in error," it said.

We suspect an overzealous staff member was at fault. Print magazines have been known to accidentally published test captions underneath photographs instead of the real thing, often featuring numerous expletives.

We're any Pocket-lint team members involved in their print publishing days? Now that would be telling.

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