How the US Airways Tweet Happened

If you’re reading this, you will know that US Airways sent an incredibly lewd photo to one of their passengers in response to a complaint.

Here is the massively censored version of the Tweet:

The 2 Key Events:

  1. Very shortly before the US Airways tweet, the @ARTxDEALER Twitter account posted ‘the photo’, addressing the Tweet to @AmericanAir. (side-note: American Air & US Airways recently merged)
  2. US Airways posted a response to user @ElleRafter: “We welcome feedback, Elle. If your travel is complete, you can detail it here for review and follow up: pic.twitter.com/vbeYgXXXXX” (I’ve del樂威壯
    iberately changed that URL to protect the innocent).

The Actual Explanation:

  • US Airways recently merged with American Air.
  • Whoever is in control of the US Airways twitter account also monitors American Air’s brand on Twitter.
  • Having seen the lewd photo sent to American Air, the social media exec copied the URL (perhaps emailing it to someone to report it, for example)
  • When they responded to @ElleRafter, instead of pasting the URL of their complaints form, they accidentally pasted the twitter image URL. In doing that, it reattached the image to their tweet.

The key piece of information is that if you copy & paste a ‘pic.twitter.com…’ Twitter photo URL into your tweet, it reattaches that photo to your tweet.

Summary: Mystery solved. The twitter account ‘@ARTxDEALER’ accidentally caused the whole thing. (I wouldn’t recommend visiting their account – not safe for work!)

Very good luck to the poor person in charge of the US Airways/American Air twitter accounts. A tough job and – from the looks of things – an honest mistake.

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