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Was this social media editor fired for being too racist?
Image Credit: Pixabay.com (https://pixabay.com/en/twitter-facebook-together-292994/)
I haven’t covered a social media firing in a while. Here’s one I read about yesterday. It’s a doozy!
Laura Wagner reporting at Deadspin’s The Concourse has more on the story (here):
Yesterday, HuffPost fired a recently hired, Los Angeles-based social media editor after her managers were alerted to the fact that an Instagram account belonging to the new hire was spewing racist rants online. Using a now-deleted Instagram account, Ashley Rose, who was hired earlier this month, targeted a number of people with the sort of racist invective you’d expect to find in the darkest 4chan threads.
“Y’all wonder why we stereotype and shoot your ignorant asses,” one post said. “You wanted a race battle in this country, you got it! But in the end remember who makes the money in this country.”
“Let’s play who will be the next Trevon [sic],” another said.
The posts get worse and you can click into Ms. Wagner’s story to see the slow trainwreck.
Imagine being the person who hired her. Oof!
You can decide for yourself whether the juice is worth the squeeze by vetting potential hires generally on social media first.
But, when hiring for a position with responsibility for your social media accounts, well, I’m convinced.