A PR exec managed to ruin her career and reputation in less than 140 characters

Dec 23, 2013 13:57 GMT  ·  By

Before the weekend, Justine Sacco was a simple communications director in New York. Now, she’s famous all over the world because of a message she sent on Twitter, making it obvious that social media really is a global tool.

The now-former employee of IAC wrote a racist tweet before embarking on a flight to her home country – South Africa – and she’s now offering an apology.

“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” she wrote without thinking twice. The message got flagged by a journalist from Valleywag and from there on, it exploded.

Everyone was waiting for Justine Sacco’s plane to land just so she could reply to the thousands of comments about her. Her name started trending over Twitter, along with the hashtag #HasJustineLandedYet.

By the time she was in South Africa, the company she worked for had already decided to let her go, which it also confirmed through an official press release.

When she did appear online, however, she didn’t apologize, but rather deleted her Twitter and Instagram accounts, effectively disappearing from the Internet.

Now, the PR exec made a statement saying that she was in anguish knowing that her remarks caused pain to so many people. “Words cannot express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa, who I have offended due to a needless and careless tweet,” she said.

Justine Sacco's tweet
Justine Sacco's tweet

“There is an AIDS crisis taking place in this country, that we read about in America, but do not live with or face on a continuous basis. Unfortunately, it is terribly easy to be cavalier about an epidemic that one has never witnessed firsthand,” Sacco added.

On the upside, however, Twitter users from all over the world united and said “No” to racism.

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Justine Sacco's tweet
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