Burger King UK’s International Women’s Day tweets to announce they want to hire more women staffs have been withdrawn after massive social media backlash. The UK branch of the international burger chain recently deleted a tweet that they posted on March 8, 2021, that read, “Women belong in the Kitchen.” The tweet, that too on International Women’s Day, attracted a lot of criticism and eventually, the company ended up deleting the tweet on March 9, 2021, and issued an apology.
https://twitter.com/BurgerKingUK/status/1369055736756600834?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwThe company said that they understand their initial tweet was wrong, and they are sorry. They further added that the idea was to attract people’s attention towards the unequal percentage of women chefs in professional kitchens. Burger King said they deleted the tweet to ensure there is no space for more abuse as there were many abusive comments. It said, “It was brought to our attention that there were abusive comments in the thread, and we don’t want to leave the space open for that.”
The ‘good intentions’ were buried in abuses
The tweet Burger King UK posted was the first tweet of a thread in which they talked about how women presence in the professional kitchen is only 20%. To help fill up the gap, they offer scholarships for women chefs to pursue their dream in the culinary arts.
However, many netizens did not read the thread, and as screenshots of only the first tweet in the thread started to make rounds, the actual intentions of the company were buried in piles of abuses thrown towards them.
The hate continues
It looks like Burger King UK will not get rid of hate anytime soon. The apology the company posted attracted more criticism as many netizens felt that they were throwing the critics under the bus for their decision to delete the tweet.
https://twitter.com/kat_tabii/status/1369132598400794625?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/generaljae_/status/1369130395694989313?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/riki7119/status/1369135704412884992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/Powerage1986/status/1369125410554847234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/cjang30/status/1369377957584773122?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwThere was comparisons of the tweet from the past as well.
https://twitter.com/TraeiTsai/status/1369072308501979139?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwPeople started posting images of the front-page ads of the company in newspapers and asked if they are going to take back the copies of newspapers that have already been circulated.
https://twitter.com/jonRfalk/status/1369066059727257601?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/squidninja120/status/1369042705498730500?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwSome pointed out the company did not delete it from their Instagram account.
https://twitter.com/pastaraviolis/status/1369118026730242050?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwThere was a time when PR experts believed that even bad publicity is good. Some studies also suggest that there is a likelihood that sales may increase after receiving a backlash. However, some experts have started to believe that it is not true anymore. In today’s time, people research before making purchases and problematic past may result in scepticism in making a purchase.