The Twitter handle @Islamic_State10 sent a tweet with the hashtag #ksuethics14 during the Poynter KSU Media Ethics Workshop hosted in Franklin Hall on Thursday. The hashtag, created specifically for the event, was meant to encourage discussion among participants.

“LEND ME YOUR EARS Message British Detainee,” the message read, with a link to YouTube video of John Cantile, a British journalist held captive by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, otherwise known as ISIS. In the video, Cantile talks about being held as a captive. Despite rumors circulated on Twitter in relation to the tweet, the video did not contain a beheading.

The tweet showed up on the large live-streaming screens in the FirstEnergy Auditorium where the workshop was held.

Students and visitors initially did not notice the tweet, sent at 11:00 a.m., and it wasn’t until 11:41 a.m. that a Kent State student mentioned that #ksuethics14 was trending.

Madeleine Bensinger, a philosophy graduate student, tweeted, “ISIS tweeted #ksuethics14 just a few hours before Joe Vealencis will talk about countering terrorism in the age of transparency… Perfect.”

Joseph Vealencis, the speaker mentioned in Bensiger’s tweet, is the director of the Office of Strategic Communication at the National Counterterrorism Center. Later in the workshop, he discussed how data collection could be used to handle potential terrorist threats in the U.S. and abroad.

Contact Matt Merchant at [email protected].