Someone who manages the New England Patriots’ Twitter page is probably without a job this morning. Whoever is behind the page forgot to keep a close eye on a Twitter contest and the team wound up congratulating a Twitter user with the N-word in the name.
On Wednesday, the Patriots were celebrating the fact that they became the first NFL team with 1 million Twitter followers with a contest. If you retweeted this tweet and won, you would get a Patriots jersey avatar with your username on it.
Unfortunately for the Patriots, someone named “@IHATEN*****S” retweeted it and managed to win. The congratulatory message read, “@IHATEN******S Thanks for helping us become the first NFL team with 1 million followers!” and included the promised avatar. The Patriots did later delete the tweet after complains, but you can still see it at Deadspin.
An hour after the snafu, the Patriots issued an apology tweet, blaming it on a “filtering system” error.
The Patriots play the Colts on Sunday night.
image of Tom Brady courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com