US Executive Sacked For Tweeting She Wouldn’t Get AIDS In Africa Because She Is White

As she prepared for the long plane journey from London to her native South Africa, where she would be spending Christmas with her family, high-flying public relations executive Justine Sacco decided to send out a final thought on Twitter. Miss Sacco now undoubtedly wishes she had kept her musings to herself.

By the time she landed in Cape Town 12 hours later her offensive comment had become a social media sensation for all the wrong reasons, and it would shortly lead to her being unceremoniously sacked from her job.

The tweet in question read: "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get Aids. Just kidding. I'm white!" With fewer than 500 people following her on the social network Miss Sacco might have hoped her remark would be little read. But as she dozed at 35,000ft, with no access to the internet, she was oblivious to the unfolding storm.

In a matter of hours the message went viral and she became one of the most discussed topics on Twitter, which has hundreds of millions of users around the world.

With Miss Sacco still up in the air people began posting messages under the heading "HasJustineLandedYet". Among the milder comments were "Justine Sacco should get fired" and "Total LOSER!" One manipulated image showed her being stomped on by riot police. Others speculated that she would need all her PR skills to handle the crisis. Even Donald Trump, host of the US version of The Apprentice, weighed in to say: "Justine is FIRED!" When her plane touched down Miss Sacco switched on her phone to find a torrent of outraged comments. She quickly deleted her original post, and then her took down her account.
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