Pay TV brand GoTV tweeted what can be considered a faux pas on Saturday berating the Super Falcons for losing 3-0 to Germany. In a tweet published via its Twitter handle, the company attempted to soothe the loss of the Falcons with the victory of their male counterparts, the Super Eagles, who beat Burundi 1-0 later on Saturday.
What our women could not do, the men made up for it!
Stay connected to GOtv for All the live matches in the #AFCON2019#AFCONnaOurOwn
— GOtv Nigeria (@GOtvNg) June 22, 2019
However, the tweet may have come off as sexist as most Twitter users considered the tweet distasteful and did not hesitate to express their disgust, with some asking that the tweet be deleted.
Thanks. Compare the successes of our men with our women you will realize the tweet was a disrespect to the women.
— Nkem4eva (@nwaegbe_nkem) June 22, 2019
In a Country where female athletes haven’t been fully appreciated. I’m not even surprised cause I’m 100% sure this was tweeted by a man???
— akara is underrated (@ebele_uk) June 23, 2019
This tweet is wrong on so many levels, excluding the fact that the women played in a World Cup and the men are playing against only African Nations. ..
— BoLU (@bluville_) June 22, 2019
Tweet Faux Pas are increasingly common in this age of social media were handlers try to be witty but end up coming off awfully insensitive. In most instances, the tweet does not represent the views of the company and are quickly deleted once it is spotted to be insensitive.
But this further demonstrates the importance of balancing the urgency to tweet “in the moment” with better supervision and implementation of standard social media guidelines. This is not the first time we are seeing a tweet like this especially after major events like a football match and will likely not be the last.
Fortunately or unfortunately, this will not impact negatively on the company’s business or subscription numbers. The brand often gets out of mistakes like this quite easily and followers forget in no time.
