News Article: Montreal Canadiens’ automated Twitter campaign backfires

[SB164]

On Tuesday night, the Montreal Canadiens’ official Twitter account said it would “celebrate one million Twitter followers with a few surprises for you!â€

The Habs certainly provided that for their one million Twitter followers, but not in the way they had hoped.

The team celebrated the milestone by sending out automated messages to Twitter followers who contacted them. Several of the messages featured custom avatar jerseys emblazoned with the names of Twitter users. Some users with offensive Twitter handles were then added to the jersey avatar and sent out on the team’s official account.

Many of the usernames featured racial slurs, some of which were directed at Canadiens defenceman P.K. Subban.

A similar social media campaign backfired on the NFL’s New England Patriots back in 2014. The team’s official account sent out an automated message that included an avatar with a Twitter handle containing a racial slur.

The team later issued an apology.



http://globalnews.ca/news/2536730/montreal-canadiens-automated-twitter-campaign-backfires/

Click to read more...

 

[Brainiac]

I don't understand twitter. Never did and never will.

And I'm not ranting about social media or technology at large. I mean, I do have a toaster with a timer. At first I thought it was blasphemy, right? To let a machine decide for how long should my bread toast? That's something I can do on my own. It's part of what I am. Planing and adapting on the fly. Skills that I don't want to give away to a machine.

It was hard, but I finally accepted that the toaster was doing more good than harm and saving me some time...

But twitter? Nope. Sorry, but I just don't get it.

 

[beowulf]

Nothing this organization does this year goes well.

 

[Le Tricolore]

The slurs weren't directed at Subban. People were taking advantage of the automatic tweets and made stupid names. The exact same thing happened to the New England Patriots not too long ago. Just because Subban is black, it doesn't mean the tweets were directed at him.


That said, I'm 14 and this was funny.

 

[Alex514]

It perfectly represents the Habs season.

Everything that could have gone wrong has!

 

[domiwroze]

Cause things weren't bad enough this season.

 

[lo striver]

 

[Bryson]

The slurs weren't directed at Subban. People were taking advantage of the automatic tweets and made stupid names. The exact same thing happened to the New England Patriots not too long ago. Just because Subban is black, it doesn't mean the tweets were directed at him.


That said, I'm 14 and this was funny.

You joined the boards when you were two years old?

And the slurs were 100% directed at Subban. One of the users had Subban and the N-word in it.

 

[Seb]

Wish it really was the act of an angry employee. Would've been much funnier.

 

[Le Tricolore]

You joined the boards when you were two years old?

Yes.

Wish it really was the act of an angry employee. Would've been much funnier.

Desharnais has been running the Twitter feed since he got hurt.

 

[void]

What I don't understand is why it lasted so long (2+ hours). Was no one monitoring it?

 

[hockeyfan2k11]

PK hate is baffling.

 

[TRG]

What I don't understand is why it lasted so long (2+ hours). Was no one monitoring it?

They probably didn't expect the millionth follower to come last night so nobody was on the job.

Still bad, I'm sure the social media manager has friends that saw it.

Or should I say ex social media manager.

 

[Habs178]

The slurs weren't directed at Subban. People were taking advantage of the automatic tweets and made stupid names. The exact same thing happened to the New England Patriots not too long ago. Just because Subban is black, it doesn't mean the tweets were directed at him.


That said, I'm 14 and this was funny.

Well when you see names that said N****RSUBBAN....safe to say that's directed at him.

Deadspin has an article that shows a few of the tweets. People are ****ed in the head, and using social media to spew racial comments, is not funny. But maybe I feel that way because I'm 37.

 

[hototogisu]

Really don't understand how you could be this dumb about automated tweets, especially after the exact same thing happened to the Patriots and the Leafs. Someone should definitely be fired for it.

As far as things "directed" at Subban, trolls on the internet just want to be as shocking and offensive as possible and that's one of the quickest routes.

 

[lo striver]

They probably didn't expect the millionth follower to come last night so nobody was on the job.

Still bad, I'm sure the social media manager has friends that saw it.

Or should I say ex social media manager.

not so sure. the guy probably just had his contract extended last month for coming with the great idea of celebrating millionth follower.

 

[Kobe Armstrong]

You joined the boards when you were two years old?

And the slurs were 100% directed at Subban. One of the users had Subban and the N-word in it.

Yeah, but racism at any level shouldn't really be considered funny. It's not like these guys told a corny joke, they're being racist just to be racist.

quoted the wrong person, my bad

 

[Strat]

You joined the boards when you were two years old?

Another reason I don't believe what most people post. They lie frequently about the silliest things. Case in point...

 

[Loosie]

Leafs fan coming in peace. Saw the story and needed somewhere to comment.

These kinds of campaigns always make me laugh, because there is no restriction on Twitter handles. We've also seen 'automated twitter' type things backfire else where...remember the TSN twitter feed on TradeCentre last year?

It's happened to the Patriots before I'm sure it will happen again until people realize that ...hey maybe we shouldn't automate twitter!

Now my understanding was with it being automated it was random what people received, so got picture some got videos. While the twitter handles are offensive and I would not condone this action at all, I find it highly ironic that the guy with the 'white power' twitter handle received a message from PK Subban.

It's also funny to see any organization 'thank' someone with a twitter handle that bashes said organization.

Also I bet you there are some juvenile morons out there that made up handles like these just to enter the contest and get these reactions.

 

[ThaDevilGirl]

It wasn't just racist twitter handles. I managed to take a few screenshots last night... I thought it was funny, and that someone screwed up.

 

[Strat]

I don't understand twitter. Never did and never will.

And I'm not ranting about social media or technology at large. I mean, I do have a toaster with a timer. At first I thought it was blasphemy, right? To let a machine decide for how long should my bread toast? That's something I can do on my own. It's part of what I am. Planing and adapting on the fly. Skills that I don't want to give away to a machine.

It was hard, but I finally accepted that the toaster was doing more good than harm and saving me some time...

But twitter? Nope. Sorry, but I just don't get it.

Message boards notwithstanding, I don't understand the appeal of social media. It's basically attention-seeking self-indulged moronic jerks bathing in narcissism.

It's hilarious the amount of drama that occurs there. Guess some people's lives are too damn boring ; they need to manufacture drama to make it more interesting.

 

[hototogisu]

Message boards notwithstanding, I don't understand the appeal of social media. It's basically attention-seeking self-indulged moronic jerks bathing in narcissism.

It's hilarious the amount of drama that occurs there. Guess some people's lives are too damn boring ; they need to manufacture drama to make it more interesting.

It's also (thinking solely of Twitter here) probably the best way on the planet to get up-to-the minute news, sports or otherwise.

Never understood comments like yours. Twitter, Facebook, etc is what you make it. If you add attention-seeking self-indulged moronic jerks who like to bathe in narcissism to your feed or your friends list, of course that's what you're going to see. But you know, it's 2016. There are a lot more people on Twitter now than just celebrities and 16 year old girls.

 

[Mad Brills*]

Person already got fired.

 

[Strat]

It's also (thinking solely of Twitter here) probably the best way on the planet to get up-to-the minute news, sports or otherwise.

Never understood comments like yours. Twitter, Facebook, etc is what you make it. If you add attention-seeking self-indulged moronic jerks who like to bathe in narcissism to your feed or your friends list, of course that's what you're going to see. But you know, it's 2016. There are a lot more people on Twitter now than just celebrities and 16 year old girls.

It's no secret that there's a disproportionate amount of people such as I described on these networks. Sifting through all the crap just to find one or two well-adjusted intelligent people is too much and frankly, I don't find anybody interesting enough to "follow" them.

Same as with YouTube comments. 99.9% of it utter garbage and just represents mostly how terrible people are. That's why I block them. No point in being exposed to that for the chance of seeing one comment a month that might be helpful or insightful.

Apart from the trade deadline, I don't have any need for Twitter. And when that period of time rolls around, I just navigate to one specific feed that reports things quickly and accurately and don't even need a subscription to see its contents. So really, it's clearly not for me. I literally have no use for it. There are zero benefits to subscribing to services like that for me.

 

[Strat]

Person already got fired.

Source?