Random Inappropriate Tweets That Totally Backfired (22 items)

(#13) The Republican National Committee Claimed Racism Was Over

This seemingly nice gesture was met with disapproval when the Republican National Committee sent out a tweet praising Rosa Parks for "her role in ending racism." The poor choice of words left followers angry.
Even though a few people tried to defend the RNC's wording, it created a torrent of adverse reactions and caused the creation of a humorous hashtag: RacismEndedWhen. Later on, the RNC corrected the tweet by saying they honor Rosa Parks "and her role in fighting to end racism."
(#14) The US State Department Was Just So, So Sexist

In an attempt to sound hip, the U.S. State Department tweeted out a message that said: "Not a '10' in the US? Then not a 10 overseas." It wasn't long before people called out the tweet for being sexist and insulting. Even worse, the State Department quickly tried to defend their actions in response to the onslaught of negative tweets, but that just made matters worse.

When something like this happens, it never helps to try to fight back against it. In order to save face, companies and organizations need to just apologize and move on, which is what the State Department did a little while later.
(#3) James Taranto
- Journalist
Following the horrific Aurora shooting incident in 2012, an editor at The Wall Street Journal by the name of James Taranto tweeted out this doozy. It obviously didn't go over well. He faced immediate backlash over his tweet, but the stubborn journalist stuck to his guns.

He called his tweet challenging, and started re-tweeting his positive and negative replies. He never apologized for the insensitive nature of his tweet, but he did later call it "ill-considered."
(#1) Twitter User Garbutted Made A Joke About A Missing Teenage Girl

Back in 2015, West Midlands Police sent out a tweet asking for help to find a missing 15-year-old girl. In horrible taste, a man with the username @Garbutted replied to the tweet saying: "If I find her I'll r*pe her."

He meant it as a "joke," but the police took him quite seriously. They told him they were passing on his information to higher authorities. The man quickly apologized and said he wasn't being serious, but soon had to delete his account because of the incident.
(#9) Jackson Murphy
- Film critic
In an attempt to be funny, teen film critic Jackson Murphy captioned his picture with Amy Schumer: "Spent the night with @amyschumer. Certainly not the first guy to write that." The young man immediately faced angry replies, calling him sexist among other things.

The worst response came from Schumer herself, who replied to his tweet, "I get it. Cause I'm a wh*re? Glad I took a picture with you. Hi to your dad." It was probably the most embarrassing moment of the young man's life. Within a half-hour, he deleted the tweet and apologized profusely.
(#20) Hillary Clinton
- US Congressperson
To try and help her brand, Hillary Clinton's administration tried to set up a social media campaign using #HillarySoQualified to try to get people on Twitter to explain why they thought Clinton would make a good president.
The hashtag was quickly hijacked by Twitter users, who turned it into a scathing criticism of the presidential candidate. People responded with things like "Fired from Watergate prosecution team for being a 'liar' and 'unethical.' #HillarySoQualified," and "HillarySoQualified for jail - it's criminal." To say that the Twitter campaign backfired would be a massive understatement.