Vodafone tosses out idiot tweeter

Vodafone's Twitter-based stupidity on Friday was down to an unguarded terminal, it transpires, and the employee concerned is now kicking his heels at home. The tweet in question emanated from Vodafone UK's Stoke-based web team, but it wasn't one of that team who claimed to be "fed up of dirty homo's, going after some beaver". …

[RegisterThis]

is he ...

... beavering away at home writing his scoop for a tabloid about indiscretion and political correctness gone mad ...?

and ... the greater concern for punctuation clearly indicates that Reg readers have not given in to the oversensitivities of minority groups and gone political correctness mad ... after all, if it had been something like 'I'm tired of dirty beaver and off to find some homos' ... NOBODY would even have been questioning it! It's not as though they said somthing like ' Let's go beat up some homos' ... that WOULD have been UNNACCEPTABLE ... but opinion of preference ... get over it!

Let me guess, calling myself a heterosexual will be un-PC just now?

[Sarah Bee]

Re: is he ...

You are an idiot. I'll leave it to the less weary to explain why (but do it politely please, let's not descent to the level of... well, Vodafone employees).

[Sarah Bee]

Re: is he ...

You are an idiot. I'll leave it to the less weary to explain why (but do it politely please, let's not descend to the level of... well, Vodafone employees).

[Matt Bradley]

Oh dear

Did you wander in here by accident? I think you were probably looking for http://www.dailymail.co.uk

I'm going to assume that this was just flamebait. However, it seems appropriate that somebody educate you. Its not the expression of preference that's problem here, kid: its the choice of language. Calling somebody a "dirty homo" isn't funny or pleasant.

If you use language like that on the company twitter, then you're clearly a liability who needs to be dismissed immediately. If you do in the pub with your mates, then you deserve a smack. Quite simple really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: is he ...

Sarah's right. Would have been an awesome FOTW, but let down by perfect spelling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, Ms Widdecombe, our paths cross once more.

As a simple thought experiment, replace "homo's" with "nigger's" and "beaver" with "whites". Still perfectly acceptable, is it?

Discrimination, no matter which variety, is not acceptable.

Now, off to the Daily Mail comments pages with you, where I believe you'll find opinions narrow enough that they won't upset your delicate sensibilities. Oh, and if you are indeed heterosexual, please don't breed. Ta.

[Richard Stubbs]

Change of tech

"wow lets get on twitter all the cool kids do it, no let's jump straight in without a strategy of how to manage it"

Looks like they are now sensibly using cotweet to manage tweets. Cotweet's strap-line is "How business does Twitter" and fortunately for Vodafone not "How amateurs can screw up your business reputation 2.0 style".

[mordac]

Who was sacked though?

Was it the idiot that posted the tweet, or the bigger idiot that left his terminal unlocked?

Badgers cos there's no beaver warning triangle.

[frank ly]

Terminology

'Beaver' would be an advisory, not a warning. Unless.........hmmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

no point in following them now

after that one moment of amusesment it'll be back to bland PR speak and nothing worth reading.

Oh well.

[JWS]

Security

Windows Key + L. That's all.

[Graham Bartlett]

With apologies to Ogden Nash

Little Jimmy on the Twitter

Said "I won't take it up the sh**ter".

Oh poor Jimmy - what hard luck -

It's by his beavering that he's f**ked.

[DV Henkel-Wallace]

Headline is confusing

Aren't all tweeters tossers?

[pctechxp]

Office desktop security 101

When you leave your Windows 2000/XP PC, Alt+Ctrl+Del and click Lock Computer or if you're too idle set screen saver time out to 1 minute and tick the option to be prompted for a password on resume.

[Peter 66]

RE: Office desktop security 101

Windows key + L is quicker then ctrl + alt + delete but its ok just retake class 100 and you'll be fine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting back to work again if you do ctrl+alt+delete and then hit k

is always quicker than logging back in from scratch, though

[Anonymous Coward]

Er no.

He's right - Winkey + L can be intercepted and is therefore not safe.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I'm a homo

and frankly to me it sounded like the writer was gay or bi, not been having a hard time so decided to bat for the other team this weekend. Either way I didn't find any of it offensive, it was funny as hell.

However it is a little unprofessional for the voice of one of the worlds largest company's to announce such a thing.

[DAN*tastik]

Homo number 2 here

I would like to reassure the un-gay ( well, un-glbt really, i can see you are all very politically correct here ) community that it was funny and not offensive...

I would also suggest the un-gblt community to relax a bit at times maybe?

[Steven Jack]

LGBT

Just had to nitpick but the equality acronym used across in the UK in the vast majority of organisations is LGBT, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans.

As for it being funny, it's a matter of taste depending on the forum, I think the key thing on these occasions is who has said it and what do they really mean, is it a cheeky tongue in cheek remark or something more unsavoury. This can only be determined by knowing the person and the wider context.

What is clear in this instance is that it is totally inappropriate to say something like that on twitter and even more inappropriate to do so on the official Vodafone account. It’s impossible to understand the context and many people will take offence, which is clearly not great for Vodafone.

I’m a gay man myself and I to say I was insulted to my very core would be overdoing it, but I do think the remark was at best distasteful and very ill-advised, unfortunately the person concerned is likely to be paying a heavy price for his moment of stupidity.

[Chris Bradshaw]

Re nitpicking...

The 'vast majority' of Reg comentards use

<----------------- this icon for nitpicking comments like yours. ;-)

isn't it better to learn to accept the ideas of people who don't conform to what the 'vast majority' want? As long as there isn't any harm done to anyone, of course.