Adidas faced widespread backlash after it inadvertently tweeted racist, anti-Semitic and other offensive phrases as part of its social media campaign.
The sportswear giant ran its #DareToCreate campaign Monday that aimed to promote its new Arsenal shirt. If a user shared a tweet advertising the brand using the hashtag, an image of the Arsenal shirt was personalized with that user’s Twitter handle on the back.
The @AdidasUK account then tweeted images of the shirts with the caption, “This is home. Welcome to the squad.”{mosads}
But Twitter users with offensive handles, including @GasAllJewss and @DieAllN—–s, hijacked the campaign, leading to the Adidas account automatically tweeting out personalized jerseys with the slogans.
One user’s name closely resembles Madeleine McCann, a 3-year-old girl allegedly kidnapped in 2007 who was never found. Another, @96wasnotenough, represents the 96 fans who died in 1989 after being crushed inside an English stadium.
Screenshots of the tweets were reposted to social media before Adidas UK deleted the original posts.
Adidas later shut down the campaign and said it would investigate the incident.
“As part of our partnership launch with Arsenal we have been made aware of the abuse of a Twitter personalization mechanic created to allow excited fans to get their name on the back of the new jersey,” an Adidas spokesperson said in a statement to The Guardian. “Due to a small minority creating offensive versions of this we have immediately turned off the functionality and the Twitter team will be investigating.”
Arsenal football club said it “totally condemn[s] the use of language of this nature, which has no place in our game or society,” The Guardian reports.
“We regret that this functionality has been abused in this way and are taking steps to ensure we protect the health of the interactions with this account,” a Twitter spokesperson told The Hill. “We have already taken action on a number of accounts for violating our policies and will continue to take strong enforcement action against any content that breaks our rules.”
—Updated at 2:36 p.m.