A New England Patriots promotion on Twitter accidentally included a username containing a racial slur on Thursday, prompting an apology from the pro football team that has been a social media pioneer.
The Patriots were in celebration mode this week, as the team had become the first in the NFL to reach one million followers on the social network. The team joined the so-called Twitterverse in April of 2009, and sometime Wednesday night pushed past the million-follower mark,
according to Boston.com.
With the new record in hand, the social media team created a piece of software that would automatically generate an image of a Patriots jersey featuring the Twitter username of anyone who used the "#1MillionPatriots" hashtag.
During the course of tweeting thousands of these promo images, an account using the name "I hate [n-word]" used the hashtag, and auto-generated a Patriots jersey featuring the awful name. The jersey drew instant attention, with nearly 600 people retweeting it before it was taken down,
USA Today reported.
Patriots social media manager Christy Berkery said ahead of the promotion that the team's owners, the Kraft family, has always embraced technology. She said the Patriots were the first NFL team to have a website – way back in 1995.
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