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Maybe You Shouldn't Tweet Anything. Because Everything's Offensive To Someone
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The firing of the Houston Rockets' social media guy for what some people felt was an objectionable tweet -- it showed a horse emoji and a gun emoji pointed at it and said "Shhhhh. Just close your eyes. It will all be over soon" -- raises the question of whether a joke that fell flat should be a fireable offense. The trouble here seems to be that if you remove the emojis, some people thought that it was a rape joke. I understand how they'd see it as a reference to rape, but if so, there's not even a joke here, and it requires the removal of the emojis to even see that. With the emojis, the intent is clear -- it's about shooting the horse, which might be offensive to some animal lovers but is more about putting the horse (representing the Dallas Mavericks) out of its misery. Not a good joke at all, and maybe worthy of a suspension if the team doesn't want to be represented by that, but firing? Was that a reasonable resolution or overreaction to nonexistent outrage? (Houston Chronicle)
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