Sports
New England Patriots Apologize for Tweet at Twitter User With Racist Name
The team has apologized for an automated tweet that occurred during a promotion for the team passing the million follower mark on Twitter.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
The good news? The New England Patriots are now the first NFL team to have 1 million followers on Twitter. The bad news? A user with a horribly racist Twitter username got retweeted by the team during the celebration.
On Nov. 13 at 9:47 a.m. the Patriots’ official Twitter account Tweeted, “We’re saying thanks to @patriots’ 1million followers w/ custom digital Pats jerseys - RT for yours! #1MillionPatriots”
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While the majority of users retweeting the message and getting an automated thanks from the Patriots’ account were fine and nonoffensive, there was one person with the N-word in their username that had to spoil the fun.
On Nov. 13 at 8:02 p.m., a tweet was sent out by @Patriots reading, “@IHATE(racial slur) Thanks for helping us become the first NFL team with 1 million followers! #1MillionPatriots” The tweet was accompanied with a photo of a custom digital jersey with the user name on the back.
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The tweet was deleted that evening and at 10:29 p.m., the Patriots posted a message that stated, “We apologize for the regrettable tweet that went out from our account. Our filtering system failed & we will be more vigilant in the future.”
According to WCVB, over 10,000 automated thank you tweets and jersey images were generated promoting the million followers.
Photo Credit: Barstool Sports
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