An IKEA store in Hong Kong has opened an internal investigation after an in-store TV screen displayed pornography while shocked shoppers browsed for cut-price furniture.

Photos of the offensive video playing in the store went viral on Chinese social media, with eyewitnesses saying that the porn ran for several minutes before employees became aware of it.

When they eventually did, one red-faced worker decided to try and rectify the situation by covering the screen with a towel – rather than just switching the TV off.

Unfortunately, the towel was too small to cover the screen, prompting plenty of off-colour comments on social media.

A spokesperson for the Swedish homeware giant apologised for the incident and said that the store was investigating how pornography had ended up being displayed. According to media reports, a tech prankster is believed to have hacked the store’s IT systems.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.