PEOPLE CAN SAY whatever they want on Twitter.
But it could easily backfire if said in the wrong context.
And, in some cases, it could cost you your job, like these folks.
Chad Shanks lost his job with the NBA’s Houston Rockets for tweeting his at state-rivals Dallas Mavericks
Shanks got a little too excited as his team was about to close out a playoff series against the Mavericks.
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oments later, the Mavericks’ Twitter account responded, “@HoustonRockets Not very classy but we still wish you guys the best of luck in the next round.”
But that wasn’t it. The Rockets soon apologised, saying the tweet was in “very poor taste.” Shanks was soon fired from his position.
This PR consultant became one of the most hated people on Earth overnight
Justine Sacco, a PR consultant who once had only 170 Twitter followers, became one of the most hated people on Earth with a single tweet she thought was funny.
In 2013, before heading to South Africa, she tweeted, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”
Tech writer Sam Biddle spotted the tweet, retweeted it to the 15,000 followers he had, and it was all downhill from there. Thousands of people were outraged and the hashtag “#HasJustineLandedYet” started trending worldwide. Eventually, Sacco was fired from her position at IAC.
Later, she did an interview with British writer Jon Ronson where she said, “I thought there was no way that anyone could possibly think it was literal.”
A CNN senior editor lost her job for showing respect to the wrong leader
CNN senior editor Octavia Nasr lost her job after praising Hezbollah’s spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, on Twitter. Her tweet was deemed offensive because Fadlallah is reportedly linked to the deaths of 260 Americans.
Never make sexual jokes about an underage person
Australian comedian Catherine Deveny was fired as columnist for the Australian paper The Age, following a joke suggesting “The Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin’s 11-year old daughter needed to “get laid.”
Deveny didn’t take it nicely and declined to apologise, saying her humour’s “deeply subjective.”
A former baseball player got canned after a racist tweet
Mike Bacsik is a former professional baseball player most famous for giving up Barry Bonds’ historic 756th homerun.
But Bacsik is also known for losing his radio job over some racially insensitive tweets. Back in 2010, he tweeted, “Congrats to all the dirty Mexicans in San Antonio,” following the Spurs’ win over his hometown team, the Dallas Mavericks.
He apologised, saying:
“It’s not a good joke…When you tweet like that, it’s not a playful, harmless thing. It’s not what it was meant to be.”
This Texas teen got fired from a pizza joint before she even started
Sometimes people get fired even before they start their new job for a tasteless joke on Twitter.
A Texas teen named Cella tweeted in February, “Ew I start this f— ass job tomorrow,” before starting her new job at a pizza joint called Jet’s Pizza.
Soon, her future boss discovered her tweet, and fired her on the spot. He wrote, “And…No you don’t start that FA job today! I just fired you! Good luck with your no money, no job life!”
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