The Senior Director of Communications for a major media conglomerate InterActivCorp (IAC) that owns Daily Beast, Vimeo, Match.com, About.com, and Ask.com 'Justine Sacco' was fired after posting a racist joke on her twitter account Friday, December 20.
Justine Sacco, before flying to Africa, tweeted something horrible.
"Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!"
— Justine Sacco (@JustineSacco) December 20, 2013
The said tweet set social networking site Twitter ablaze. Unfortunately, the PR executive couldn’t defend herself for she was boarded in a 12-hour flight from London to Cape Town; therefore letting netizens have ample time to ignite their torches and bombard Sacco on the social media site.
#HasJustineLandedYet became one of those on the top spot of trending topics on twitter that day and the next.
“This is an outrageous, offensive comment that does not reflect the views and values of IAC. This is a very serious matter and we are taking appropriate action.”, IAC said in a statement.
"Unfortunately, the employee in question is unreachable on an international flight", the company added.
As Sacco flew from Europe to Africa, she didn’t have any idea that her life was about to change, especially where her career was concerned.
When Sacco landed on Cape Town, somebody got a chance to take a picture of her talking on a phone looking somewhat devastated. Immediately after that, Sacco deleted the said tweet and eventually her entire twitter account was deactivated.
Yup. @JustineSacco HAS in fact landed at Cape Town international. She's decided to wear sunnies as a disguise. pic.twitter.com/2I3WZQCIci
— Zac (@Zac_R) December 21, 2013The following day, Saturday, IAC released an official statement confirming the firing of Sacco.
“The offensive comment does not reflect the views and values of IAC,” a company spokesperson stated. “We take this issue very seriously, and we have parted ways with the employee in question.”
“There is no excuse for the hateful statements that have been made and we condemn them unequivocally,” IAC said in its statement.
“We hope, however, that time and action, and the forgiving human spirit, will not result in the wholesale condemnation of an individual who we have otherwise known to be a decent person at core.”
Apologize
Justine Sacco apologized Sunday for her "needless and careless tweet" about AIDS in Africa.
In a written statement. Sacco apologized "for being insensitive to this crisis -- which does not discriminate by race, gender or sexual orientation, but which terrifies us all uniformly -- and to the millions of people living with the virus, I am ashamed."
She added that she is a native of South Africa and was upset that she had hurt so many people there.
"I am very sorry for the pain I caused," she wrote.
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