Many X users insisted that the account should address the incident, and seemed to treat Elmo as if he were a real person instead of a fictional TV character.

“It was Elmo, but Elmo was radicalized by the manosphere. Elmo is part of the male loneliness epidemic,” Stewart as the puppet said.

Sesame Workshop, the parent organization of Sesame Street and its characters, said the security measures in place to protect the account weren’t strong enough, allowing for bad actors to hijack the ac...