City of Vaughan deletes Twitter account after profane snowstorm rant
City apologizes and says it is investigating cause of ‘inappropriate’ tweet
CBC News
Posted: Feb 8, 2013 1:16 PM ET
Last Updated: Feb 8, 2013 6:12 PM ET
The official City of Vaughan Twitter account was deleted on Friday morning, after an inappropriate tweet about the snowstorm hitting southern Ontario was posted to the account. (Twitter)
The City of Vaughan deleted its Twitter account and apologized Friday morning, after a profane word was used in a post about the snowstorm blasting southern Ontario.
The tweet, which was posted around 7 a.m. Friday morning, said: “Everyone on my street has double garages…. who are these f---nuts who don’t put their car in their garage when we get 2 feet of snow? #dumb”.
The post, which quickly made the rounds on the internet, and the @City_of_Vaughan Twitter account was deleted a couple of hours later.
'The City has temporarily suspended the account and is investigating the cause of this tweet, including the possibility of the account being hacked.'— City of Vaughan
The city later released a statement, saying it apologized “for the inappropriate tweet that came earlier today” from its corporate Twitter account.
“The City has temporarily suspended the account and is investigating the cause of this tweet, including the possibility of the account being hacked by an unauthorized user,” the statement said.
By Friday afternoon, the Twitter account @City_of_Vaughan was back online, The offensive tweet was no longer there, and an apologetic tweet had been posted.
The City of Vaughan apologizes for the inappropriate tweet that came earlier today from its corporate Twitter account.
— City of Vaughan (@City_of_Vaughan) February 8, 2013
The Twitter gaffe comes as a major snowstorm began hitting southern Ontario, with between 15 and 25 centimetres of snow expected. Many people took to social media to share photos and comment on the wintry weather.
Social media users also reacted to the City of Vaughan's “inappropriate” snowstorm tweet, retweeting and criticizing the post, as well as cracking jokes.
Man, the city of Vaughan is pretty harsh about its taxpayers.
— Emmett Macfarlane (@EmmMacfarlane) February 8, 2013
Re: City of Vaughan Twitter incident the person probably operates his personal/work account via phone & forgot to switch to personal! #Fail
— Mahmoud Shoblaq (@MahmoudShoblaq) February 8, 2013
I think there's a bigger storm brewing at City of Vaughan....
— SandyT (@sassygirlcanada) February 8, 2013
I either love the City of Vaughan's new social media strategy or feel deep empathy towards the staff person soon to be disciplined.
— Andrew Brett (@andrewbrett) February 8, 2013
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