A massive error.
Adidas has come under heavy criticism following a recent social media campaign which inadvertently led to the sportswear company tweeting out racist and abusive terms to hundreds of thousands of followers.
The company ran a social media campaign on Monday aimed at promoting a new Arsenal jersey, which created customised images of the new jersey with the Twitter usernames of anyone who liked a previous tweet.
But, as can be the case on the internet, the stunt was hijacked by a number of Twitter users, who temporarily changed their Twitter usernames to include offensive terms, many of which included terms that breach Twitter’s regulations on hateful content.
This resulted in Adidas’ UK account publishing a number of extremely offensive tweets.
A number of the tweets included the n-word, as well as references to the Holocaust, the Hillsborough tragedy, and Madeleine McCann.
An Adidas spokesperson told CNN: “As part of our partnership launch with Arsenal we have been made aware of the abuse of a Twitter personalisation mechanic created to allow excited fans to get their name on the back of the new jersey.
“Due to a small minority creating offensive versions of this we have immediately turned off the functionality and the Twitter team will be investigating.”
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