Twitter, with its 140 characters limitation
notwithstanding, is infamous for landing many in trouble. We take a look
at some Twitter controversies that rocked the social media scene in the
recent past.
The use of social
media by brands has become commonplace. However, lack of proper
understanding of the medium could lead to embarrassing situations.
Unlike a print ad that could be soon forgotten, a gaffe on social media
can cause a lot of damage due to its viral nature. We have seen several
instances of brands, as well as renowned personalities, finding
themselves in the midst of a controversy due to their social media
antics. Especially, Twitter, with its 140 characters limitation
notwithstanding, is infamous for landing many in trouble. We take a look
at some Twitter controversies that rocked the social media scene in the
recent past.
Watch your wicket
Suresh Raina learns it the hard way
Suresh Raina,
the rising Indian cricketer, has been the latest to commit a faux pas
on Twitter. While India beat Pakistan in the recent ICC T20 World Cup
play-off matches, it was Pakistan who entered the semi-finals. As it
turned out, Pakistan was sent packing home by Sri Lankan team who made
it to the finals. A tweet from @ImRaina taking a potshot at the
archrival's loss in an unsavory manner read
"Ek do din late gaye ghar !!!! Woh bhi besharam ki tarah Gaye... Bye bye Pakistan!!!!."
This tweet obviously made news and Raina received a lot of flak for the
unsportsmanlike attitude. He later deleted the tweet and provided
explanation that the tweet was actually posted by his nephew using his
Twitter handle and he was clueless about the same. He nonetheless
offered an apology. While it’s difficult to know how much of truth there
is to it, some enterprising folks on Twitter have gone ahead and
created a parody Twitter account -
@raina_nephew.
Mixed-Up
KitchenAid got mixed-up by taking on Obama
A couple of days ago,
KitchenAid,
a brand in US that is known for hand mixers and blenders, found itself
in a soup over a tweet. It’s very common for brands to tweet about the
on-going events, while promoting their brand. With the U.S. presidential
elections just around the corner, the presidential debate was one such
event that gained much hype over the social networks. In fact, according
to reports, it became the most tweeted about event in US politics with
more than 10 million tweets sent during the 90-minute live event. While
we may all have our favourites, as a brand you need to be careful about
expressing your opinions. That’s where KitchenAid went wrong, as it made
reference to President
Obama’s late grandmother in a tweet that said,
"Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! 'She died 3 days b4 he became president."
Needless to say, it caused quite a controversy. Even though they were
quick to delete the tweet, many had already retweeted it and not to
mention taken a screenshot, which was then widely circulated online.
KitchenAid, while apologising to the first family, provided an
explanation saying that the tweet was carelessy sent by one of their
team members and that the concerned person wouldn’t be tweeting for them
anymore.
Vibrate or Shiver?
Shiver or Vibrate? Not too sure...
Volkswagen, the German automobile manufacturer and the company behind
the iconic Beetle, has time and again come up with novel ad campaigns
sparing no expense. Back in 2010, it caught people off-guard with its
talking newspaper ad. A small speaker device was implanted on the last
page of the newspaper and as soon as people turned to the last page, the
device trigged the audio message about its new car Vento. It was novel,
never seen before in India and was well received. However,
Volkswagen
wasn’t that fortunate the second time around. In September, readers of
leading dailies were treated to vibrating newspaper, thanks to
Volkswagen. The front page ad inquired
“Feel the shiver of excitement?”
and the little black box embedded in the newspaper was supposed to let
people experience the “shiver”. But unfortunately for Volkswagen, people
perceived it as vibration more than shiver and took to social networks
lampooning the ad using double entendre. Twitter especially was abuzz
and what added fuel to the fire was a tweet from Volkswagen supposedly
defending the creative campaign, but failed miserably. The tweet from
the official Twitter handle @VolkswagenIndia read
“Women would be
dumb to call it a vibrator. Or maybe they do not understand real driving
experience. #PunIntended #Volkswagen #Creative”. This tweet
invited further wrath from people. And Volkswagen committed social media
hara-kiri when it deleted the offending tweet by taking the usual line
of account being compromised. And since then, the official Twitter
account hasn’t been updated.
Mamma Mia, not quite
Hash tag gone wrong
Another Indian brand that recently made a social media faux pas was Fortis Healthcare. Its
Mamma Mia
initiative on Twitter is aimed at pregnant women and new mothers, to
guide them on their journey. To celebrate World Breast Feeding Week in
August, it decided to launch a contest on Twitter urging people to use a
certain hash tag and come up with creative one-liners. This was
indented to spread awareness about benefits of breast feeding, however,
it didn’t give much thought to the hash tag it chose. It urged followers
to use #AgarMaKaDudhPiaHaiTo. Of course, everybody will identify those
words that were spouted by Amitabh Bachchan in the movie Lawaaris in an
angry overtone. Twitter users had a field day using the hash tag, coming
up with absurd one liners referring to bollywood celebs and even our
Prime Minister. Needless to say, the hash tag didn’t quite serve the
intended purpose. To redeem itself, Fortis, too, just like Volkswagen,
attributed the gaffe to its account being hacked. However, to give it
credit, it recovered quickly and continued with the awareness campaign;
of course, sans the hash tag. Looks like Fortis has learnt its lesson
well and since then, has run several successful campaigns on Twitter.
Politically incorrect
Shashi Tharoor is well-known for his Twitter gaffes
Shashi Tharoor has remained in the eye of the storm with his several
foot-in-the-mouth tweets. A renowned member of parliament, he is quite
active on the social networking sphere. First time around it was his
cattle class remark that created an uproar. He used the word cattle
class to refer to the economy class of the airlines. His remark was
highly publicised by all the media channels so much so that the Congress
termed it ‘absolutely insensitive’ and firmly stated that the party
does not endorse his view. Though no disciplinary action was taken
against him, the party did distance itself from the whole controversy.
What went unnoticed, however, was the fact that it was not
Shashi Tharoor
who used the expression ‘cattle class’ in the first place. He was
simply replying to a tweet by a prominent columnist who had used the
expression. Then again, his public spat with IPL chief Lalit Modi was
well chronicled on Twitter. After resigning from his post as the
Minister of State for External Affairs, he remained inactive on Twitter
for a little while, but he is back again and so far has managed to
remain controversy-free.
While the list is endless, we have picked just a few. Apart from
those mentioned here, do let us know the ones you find most amusing.
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