Yahoo’s inadvertently racist tweet highlights importance of editing

The importance of proofreading cannot be understated.

Yahoo Finance’s social media team highlighted that truth Thursday evening when it tweeted a news story with the text: “Trump wants a much bigger navy. Here’s how much it’ll cost.”

At least, that’s what the team meant to post.

Instead, an “n” replaced the “b” on “bigger”—the two letters are adjacent on the keyboard—changing the tweet entirely and making it fodder for caustic barbs from a bevy of Twitter users.

When autocorrect goes wrong.@YahooFinance http://pic.twitter.com/iYRvcA8aWr

— Mike Cernovich 🇺🇸 (@Cernovich) January 6, 2017

Many seized the opportunity to make jokes about how a not exactly “bigger” navy might look, while others piled on with snark over the organization’s social media prowess:

Dude from Yahoo Finance is stil calculating how much of their job that tweet is gonna cost them.

— Chris Uño (@CRS_One) January 6, 2017

Yahoo Finance's social media correspondent tomorrow at work http://pic.twitter.com/Zu0PaG1Adx

— Mitch Broyles (@broylesmb) January 6, 2017

"Wow we sure are getting a lot of those mentions tonight, huh?"- inattentive guy at Yahoo finance

— This Guy Are Sick (@Cosmis) January 6, 2017

@YahooFinance a what navy? http://pic.twitter.com/YLi8LJT0Cn

— Pats SPURS ישראל🇻🇨 (@CrownNotNice) January 6, 2017

@YahooFinance THIS EXACTLY WHY WE USE GMAIL NOW

— Alpulda Draco (@SlimWavey) January 6, 2017

Yahoo! Finance currently seeking a new Social Media Coordinator. http://pic.twitter.com/BymIWLUGXX

— Jacob Knight (@JacobQKnight) January 6, 2017

Wow, @YahooFinance had an EPIC racist typo in one of their recent Tweets. You'd think checking for that stuff would be a no-beaner.

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) January 6, 2017

Yahoo Finance rn http://pic.twitter.com/rbq7dHDIU5

— Johnny Obeid 🇵🇸 (@JohnnyObeid) January 6, 2017

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Yahoo Finance’s team scrubbed the offending post and issued an apology:

We deleted an earlier tweet due to a spelling error. We apologize for the mistake.

— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) January 6, 2017

The error wasn’t corrected before several hashtags ridiculing the error were trending across Twitter, however, turning the typo into a massive headache for the publication’s social media and PR teams last night.

Lesson learned: Think Edit before you tweet.

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