Note to brands: don’t trust a “filtering system” to safeguard your social media accounts.
The New England Patriots became the first NFL team to hit one million followers on Twitter, and it celebrated the milestone Thursday by blasting out images of a Patriots jersey with users’ Twitter handles on the back to those who retweeted the account.
We’re saying thanks to @patriots‘ 1million followers w/ custom digital Pats jerseys – RT for yours! #1MillionPatriots pic.twitter.com/u2SfidCb9e
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) November 13, 2014
The promo ran smoothly until a user with the handle @IHATENIGGERSS got his “custom digital jersey”:
.@Patriots Twitter Thank You Includes N-Word, Jersey Mockup. Welp? http://t.co/25feZ0qTR0 pic.twitter.com/fvSDzD9Jk4
— Hilary Sargent (@lilsarg) November 14, 2014
The team deleted the tweet and said it slipped through because a “filtering system” failed:
We apologize for the regrettable tweet that went out from our account. Our filtering system failed & we will be more vigilant in the future.
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) November 14, 2014
