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The last thing Justine Sacco did before boarding a plane to South Africa was to publish a tweet. Little could she have imagined that her life would not be the same when she touches down in South Africa.
The first thing she was greeted with after completing the journey and landing in South Africa was a large group of reporters and camera crews asking for her comment on the tweet.
Here's her tweet which needs no explaining. -
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While she was in flight, the internet quickly picked up the racist view of the tweet and reacted strongly. She only had a couple of hundred followers, and her racist tweet could have gone unnoticed had it not been publicized by @BuzzFeed.
While she was in flight and hence out of touch with the online world, there was a hashtag trending on Twitter: #HasJustineLandedYet This caused one Twitterer @Zac_R to be at the Capetown aiport and live-tweet -
Guys. @Zac_R is at Capetown airport tweeting live from the scene. #HasJustineLandedYet
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SON!! “@Zac_R: Yup. @JustineSacco HAS in fact landed at Cape Town She’s decided to wear sunnies as a disguise. pic.twitter.com/iiUVyMbFlX” -
While some users expressed extreme views (Justine should contract AIDS), others had a more sincere concern for race relations, like Ivo Vegter:
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The Justine Sacco outrage isn’t just PC moralising, or mob mentality. Comments like hers sabotage bridges that take a long time to build.
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Some thought that the Justine Sacco issue received disproportionate coverage compared to more important issues
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Nearly a quarter of American children are living in poverty. I think there are more pressing issues than Duck Dynasty and Justine Sacco.
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#HasJustineLandedYet– Justine, what the hell are you doing, are you crazy? Not nice or fair! I will support @AidforAfrica. Justine is FIRED!
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On landing, Justine was greeted by her father, and soon she realised what a mess her tweet had created. She not only deletd the infamous tweet, but also deactivated her Twitter account, and issued an apology, reportedly on Facebook.
But it was too little too late. The PR agency that employed Justine had some top clients to answer to. How could Justine be in a job to make her clients look good in public, when she has been unable to maintain her own image? The outcome was obvious. Justine lost her job.
The irony is Justine Sacco is a South African who left the country so that (as per her father's statement) she wouldn't have to raise her children in South Africa witnessing racist treatment given to black people.
While a major opinion was being formed against Justine's racist tweet, there was a bit of support forthcoming for her. -
I actually feel sort of bad for Justine Sacco. That’s pretty much the worst way for an international flight to end, outside of crashing.
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@Zac_R who took one of the first pictures of Justine after she landed in South Africa later tweeted about the changing face of America:
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Will racism die when we can’t tell each other apart? @NatGeo shows us what the average person will look like in 2050 pic.twitter.com/jbCiYRhnm5
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TYT has done a good recap of the incident and have included Justine's apology in the video:
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Terrible AIDS Tweet Gets PR Exec Fired Before Her Plane Lands
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There's a lesson for every user of social media, especially for PR professionals, to use the medium responsibly. Social media has a reach that is not only immediate but also wide-spread – a fact that is often not on top-of-mind while tweeting.
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On Justine Sacco being fired, it means that the disclosure “these tweets are my own and not my employers” don’t ring true in today’s age.
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@ralphmathekga the Justine Sacco debacle is handy example to refer to ‘think before you tweet…’
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