Twitter can be a great place to share ideas.
The microblogging platform has a large worldwide audience.
It is estimated that every day 100 million people are daily active users on Twitter and
that Twitter has 261 million international users.
However, as with any other social media, you have to be careful about what you say and
post on Twitter.
A growing problem is people losing their jobs over inappropriate tweets.
Employers attempt to address this problem by establishing rules for employees to follow.
According to lawyer Bryan Wood, “many major employers have social media policies that
address activity on both personal and professional accounts.”
They include advice about “basic decency” and what would seem to be common sense measures
such as “be respectful” and “protect proprietary company information.”
What can happen if you don’t follow these policies?
We will find out as we examine our top 20 job-ending tweets in this episode of The Infographics
Show, “Worst Tweets That Got People Fired.”
20.
Teen’s Job Hating Tweet When will people learn not to trash their
jobs online if they want to keep them?
Buzzfeed News tells the story of Twitter user Cellla_.
Before her first day of work at a pizzeria, the teen tweeted, “Ew, I start this f---
ass job tomorrow.”
Her boss, Robert Waple, found out about her tweet from one of his workers and decided
to fire her online.
He tweeted back, “And.
. . . no you don’t start that FA job today!
I just fired you!
Good luck with your no money, no job life!”
19.
“Got Pot?”
Tweet If you are going to do something illegal,
the last thing you want to do is announce it on social media.
Sunith Baheerathan, a Mr. Lube employee working in Toronto, learned this lesson the hard way
when he tried to make a drug deal via Twitter.
To make matters worse, he gave out his location so that everyone could track him down, including
the police.
“Any dealers in Vaughan wanna make a 20sac chop?
Come to Keele/Langstaff Mr. Lube, need a spliff,” Baheerathan tweeted.
“Awesome!
Can we come too?”
responded Constable Blair McQuillan of York Regional Police.
Not surprisingly, Baheerathan got fired instead of getting pot.
18.
“Party Girl” Teacher Tweets Carly McKinney was a Colorado math teacher
who was not afraid to show her wild side outside of the classroom on social media.
The attractive young teacher posted semi-nude photos of herself on Twitter, and she made
her penchant for pot smoking public.
According to one source, she wrote “Naked.
Wet.
Stoned” in one tweet and “Maybe I’ll teach high just to see what happens!” in
another.
There was a Twitter photo of herself actually smoking pot inside her car.
Once word about her racy tweets got out, she was first suspended and then fired, although
“her students tried to save her” from losing her job.
17.
Broke Girls Tweet Phil Hardy worked as a congressional staffer
for Idaho Congressman Raul Labrador until he made an embarrassing mistake.
Not realizing he was still logged into Labrador’s official Twitter account, Hardy wrote, “Me
likey Broke Girls.”
According to a Daily Mail article, Hardy meant to post this comment on his own Twitter account
in response to seeing a sexy Super Bowl ad.
It featured the two stars of the CBS comedy Broke Girls, Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs,
pole dancing to Def Leppard’s song “Pour Some Sugar On Me.”
The comment was online for only 14 seconds, but it was 14 seconds too long.
Labrador’s office “apologized for the tweet,” and Labrador fired Hardy.
16.
Chrysler Tweet That Chews Out Drivers According to a Business Insider article, Scott
Bartosiewicz “was a social media strategist for New Media Strategies.”
He managed Chrysler’s Twitter account until one day, like Phil Hardy, he posted an inappropriate
tweet meant for his own personal account.
On Chrysler’s official Twitter account, he dropped the F-bomb and mocked Detroit drivers
when he tweeted, “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet
no one here knows how to f*cking drive.”
Needless to say, Chrysler was not happy about what this tweet did to its public image, and
Bartosiewicz lost his job.
15.
Whistleblower Tweet In 2013, developer Adria Richards attended
a conference where she heard two men near her making sexual jokes.
She was offended by the jokes and could not resist the temptation to vent about the men
on Twitter.
According to ABC News, she photographed them and tweeted, “Not cool.
Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and ‘big’ dongles.
Right behind me.”
The tweet had more negative consequences than Richards could have imagined.
One of the men who made the sexist remarks was fired and so was Richards.
The CEO of SendGrid, the company Richards worked for, explained that he dismissed her
because “he took issue with her decision to ‘publicly’ shame the offenders by tweeting
the comments and photos” and that “her actions have strongly divided the same community
she was supposed to unite.”
ABC also reported that Richards “received rape and death threats on websites” and
that the hacking group Anonymous released “a statement that it would take action against
SendGrid's users and computer systems if it didn't fire Richards.”
One source reported that Richards stopped tweeting for a year due to threats and harassment
but has since returned to Twitter.
14.
Insensitive Tweet about a War Hero Widow Turning tragedy into an opportunity for political
mockery backfired for former Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama volunteer Dan Grilo.
In response to Trump’s tribute to the widow of fallen U.S. Navy SEAL William “Ryan”
Owens, Grilo tweeted, “Sorry, Owens' wife, you’re not helping yourself or your husband’s
memory by standing there and clapping like an idiot.
Trump just used you.”
According to Fox News, Grilo’s tweet offended “commentators on both sides of the aisle.”
It also caused Grilo to lose his job as a principal for Liberty Advisor Group.
A company statement said, “Regardless of whether the comments in the tweet were intended
to cause the hurt and anger that they ultimately generated, they were unacceptable to us, and
the individual who issued the tweet is no longer affiliated with Liberty.”
13.
Tasteless Costume Tweet In 2013, Alicia Ann Lynch lost her job and
made herself a target for social media persecution because of her thoughtless choice of Halloween
costume.
On her Twitter and Instagram accounts, she posted a photo of herself dressed as a bloody
Boston Marathon bombing victim for Halloween.
The tragic event was still fresh in people’s minds because it happened earlier that year
in April, and Internet users were merciless in their online attacks against her.
According to the New York Daily News, Lynch, her parents, and her best friend received
“vicious threats” from strangers who called them after obtaining personal details from
a partial photo of Lynch’s driver’s license.
Another source states that “Twitter users circulated nude pictures and videos of her
found on Tumblr.”
Unable to tolerate the hate, Lynch closed down all of her social media accounts, but
“later reopened her Twitter account in an attempt to be forgiven for the costume.”
12.
Sports-Related Racist Tweet In 2010, former MLB pitcher Mike Bacsik was
working as a sports producer and radio personality until he cranked out a racist tweet in a fit
of drunken dismay over the outcome of a Maverick-Spurs game.
“Congrats to all the dirty mexicans in San Antonio” is the tweet that got him suspended
and then fired from his job.
In an interview with ESPN, Bacsik was apologetic and took responsibility for what he tweeted.
"If you want to do a job like this, your guard always has to be up," he said.
"It's tough because my guard was down.
I learned my lesson.
I'm owning up to what I did.
I did a horrible thing.
I'm very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets."
11.
Sacco Sacked for Racist Tweet You would think that public relations executives
of all people would be careful about what they post on Twitter, but Justine Sacco was
not.
According to one source, she wrote, “Going to Africa.
Hope I don’t get AIDS.
Just kidding.
I’m white!”
By the time her long flight to South Africa was almost over, her racist comment spread
across the Internet, offending people far and wide.
The company she worked for, InterActive Corp, could not keep her on as a PR executive amidst
the public outrage caused by her racist tweet.
Sacco was fired and joined the ranks of the other doomed public relations people on this
list.
10.
Roseanne Barr’s Racist Tweet Roseanne Barr made headlines earlier in 2018
when she was fired from her sitcom for posting a racist tweet about former Obama adviser
Valerie Jarrett.
Barr tweeted that Jarrett “was equal to the ‘Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the
Apes’” according to a Guardian article.
Since her firing, Barr is somewhat apologetic and has provided a wide range of explanations
for this indefensible tweet.
She said in a YouTube video that “she thought Valerie Jarrett was white.”
She even tried to blame Ambien, but Sanofi, the company that manufactures Ambien, wouldn’t
let her get away with that excuse.
The company tweeted, “Racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.”
9.
Firefighters’ Sexist Tweets In 2013, two Toronto firefighters named Matt
Bowman and Lawaun Edwards were fired for posting sexist comments on their Twitter accounts.
It was widely reported that Bowman tweeted remarks like “Reject a woman and she will
never let it go.
One of the many defects of their kind.
Also weak arms” and ““I’d never let a woman kick my ass.
If she tried something I’d be like hey! you get your bitch ass back in the kitchen
and make me some pie!”
According to the Observer, both lines were from TV shows that were “intended to make
fun of people who are sexist.”
Edwards is best known for his misogynistic tweet, "Would swat [sic] her in the back of
the head been considered abuse or a way to reset the brain?"
Both firefighters were fired because these tweets “were deemed to be in violation of
city policy” according to one source.
However, they challenged their dismissals.
Bowman’s termination was upheld because he posted other tweets that were more disturbing
than the offensive TV lines, such as this one reported by an online legal news website
called AdvocateDaily.com: “if you were deaf I would rape you and then break your fingers
so you can’t tell anyone ...”
However, AdvocateDaily.com states Edwards was reinstated because his “swat” tweet
was considered to be an “isolated instance.”
An arbitrator overseeing the firefighters’ case said in her decision that “While I
have found that the ‘swat in the back of the head’ tweet was inappropriate, I find
that termination is too harsh a penalty for that comment.”
8.
“Instant Karma” Tweet In 2017, sociology professor Kenneth L. Storey
unleashed a storm of social media outrage with this irrational and insensitive tweet
about Hurricane Harvey:
I dont believe in instant Karma but this kinda feels like it for Texas.
Hopefully this will help them realize the GOP doesnt care about them.
People did not like Storey’s belief that Texans deserved to suffer hurricane damage
because of their political preferences.
According to one source, his employer, the University of Tampa, “received a flurry
of criticism for the post, and Storey was promptly fired.”
7.
Police Death Cheer Tweets from Subway Worker Some people hate the police, and Subway worker
Sierra “C-Babi” McCurdy is one of them.
She was far from sad when she found out about a double murder of two police officers.
She tweeted, “2 police officers was shot in Hattiesburg tonight . . . GOT EM” and
“police take away innocent people lives now & get away w/ it, fxck them . . . [no
mercy].”
Twitter users who came across her coldhearted tweets showed her no mercy, demanding that
Subway fire her.
Subway complied with their request.
6.
Insensitive Sexual Assault Tweets Making fun of people’s tragedies is a bad
idea whether you are online or not.
According to a Mashable article, veteran war correspondent Nir Rosen raised public ire
with some thoughtless tweets about Lara Logan, a CBS chief foreign correspondent who “had
suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault.”
Instead of offering sympathy, he tweeted such “insensitive” comments as "I'm rolling
my eyes at all the attention she'll get" and "it would have been funny if it happened to
Anderson too."
Rosen was not technically fired from his position as a Law Fellow at the NYU Center for Law
and Security, but Forbes reports that a statement from NYU indicates “that his resignation
was almost certainly under pressure from the Center.”
5.
Trump Incest Tweet According to an entertainment news website
called The Wrap, Politico reporter Julia Ioffe tweeted in 2016 that Donald Trump “is either
f—–g his daughter or he’s shirking nepotism laws.”
In response to her tweet, Politico ended her contract early and sent a letter out to employees.
“We understand how absolutely infuriating it is to have incidents like this tarnish
POLITICO and the great work being done across the company,” the letter said.
“We feel the same, and as such there will be little tolerance for this type of behavior.”
Fortunately for Ioffe, she was on her way to another job at The Atlantic at the time
she made the offensive tweet.
The Atlantic did not seem worried Ioffe might make a similar blunder in her new position.
Washington Post reporter Erik Wemple tweeted, “Atlantic says it is ‘confident’ Julia
Ioffe will adhere to mag standards when she comes aboard in January.”
However, she did not stay long with The Atlantic, leaving it in 2018 to become a political reporter
for GQ.
4.
Gross Golden Nachos Tweet We’ve all heard horror stories about what
restaurant employees do to the food they serve to customers, and Taco Bell employee Cameron
Jankowski provided his own disgusting contribution by tweeting a photo of himself peeing on some
nachos at work.
According to a Daily Mail story, Jankowski defended his action by calling the photo a
“prank.”
The photo won him the title “winner of the piss Olympics” from Hunter Moore, who is
known for the “now-defunct ‘revenge porn’ website Is Anyone Up?”
Jankowski also tweeted that he did not give the urine-soaked nachos to anyone and that
“There are no laws saying what you can and cannot piss upon.”
These arguments did not quell the growing backlash from Internet users.
A hacking group called Anonymous “asked their 140,000 followers to ‘Find This Taco
Bell Employee,’” and it “created a video of Jankowski’s Tweets with a series of photographs
of him to shame him.”
Taco Bell soon found out what Jankowski did and fired him.
Taco Bell spokeswoman Amy Kavanaugh said, “We find this prank absolutely unacceptable,
and we plan to terminate anyone involved and work with authorities to pursue legal action.”
3.
James Gunn’s Rape and Pedophilia Tweets There’s a saying that once something is
on the Internet, it stays on the Internet forever.
Director James Gunn would probably agree after losing his job as director of the Guardians
of the Galaxy franchise over some old but still offensive tweets that recently surfaced.
USA Today reported that tweets such as “I like when little boys touch me in my silly
place” and “The best thing about being raped is when you’re done being raped and
it’s like ‘whew this feels great, not being raped!' " did not uphold Disney Studio’s
values, so the company fired him.
2.
Anthony Weiner’s First Lewd Public Tweet This list would not be complete without mentioning
the first major social media mistake of sexting addict Anthony Weiner.
The troubles for the New York congressman began when he tweeted an indecent photo of
himself to a 21-year-old female college student in 2011.
Unfortunately, Weiner sent it as a public tweet.
The tweet was deleted but not in time to avoid detection.
According to salon.com, a Twitter user named Dan Wolfe retweeted Weiner’s scandalous
tweet, and the retweet got the attention of blogger Andrew Breitbart.
Breitbart later published a piece on Weiner’s deleted tweet, and soon the tweet received
national attention.
To make a long story short, Weiner tried to deny the tweet was his, but later he owned
up to it and was out of a job after he resigned from Congress.
1.
Infamous Trump Head Tweet Kathy Griffin likes to shock people with her
comedy, but she went too far in 2017 when she posted a photo of herself on Twitter and
Instagram holding what looked like the bloody, decapitated head of President Donald Trump,
which was actually a mask.
The horrible social media stunt received widespread public condemnation.
Even Democrats such as her friend Anderson Cooper did not approve of the photo according
to one source.
There were other negative consequences.
An article posted on The Wrap reports that “in the aftermath of the incident, Griffin
lost a number of jobs including on CNN’s New Year’s Eve show with Anderson Cooper
and multiple live gigs.”
She was also investigated by the Secret Service and received death threats according to a
Hollywood Reporter article.
Do you know of a tweet that should be on this list?
Have you or someone you know lost a job over an inappropriate tweet?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called Why Winning The Lottery Is The Worst
Thing That Can Happen To You!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!