It wasn't the company though, it was a person on twitter!
Again, this level of naivety and feigned ignorance over things that are common practice in every other facet of business and industry is one that's hard to take seriously. The person didn't just fart and land on the desk in the office, primed to write a shitty tweet. They were hired, they were told the remits of their position, they may or may not have had the tweet vetted by at least one other employee before it was sent – and yes, I have worked within marketing departments of large organizations. It's rarely some spotted teen who's been allowed to run rampant with the front-facing image of the company without restriction.
That's what this is, and that's what twitter is. It's a very conscious front-face to your company that can be used to directly engage with your community. Anyone hiring for, and anyone applying for, this position would know this and understand the importance of it.
"Gut writes shitty tweet, guy gets fired" is a reduction of what happens.
Hiring for the above positions should rely on some background into the person their hiring's activity on social media, not least because this person is front-facing in a digital position where they'll actively been communicating on your behalf. It's not some NSA level nonsense, just a cursory scroll through public pages to get a sense of some of their vocal positions. It's basic due-dilligence for the role, done in minutes while assessing candidates. So it's likely it occured and nothing was raised, but it's a potential area for things like this to be caught.
So you've got your written job spec (likely written/agreed by people outside of the hiring manager). You have your hiring manager. Now you've hired the little would-be devil. You have an induction, you train him. At this point you might be congizent of the fact you've had prior twitter controversies within your family of companies, and knowing how one can affect the other perhaps you labour the point of being careful what to post. It's not comprehensive but it's key guidance on the tone your company wishes to write with, the remits of what they can and can't go for (politics, social issues, competition, the like). This is an important step as it's the bridge between their past experience within media positions, and how you would like for them to represent you. This can be as vague and as strict as it likes, but it's defined by the client/employer.
So.. guy writes shitty tweet.. From this point it's not even about the guy any more. That part of the story is locked in time, and now the only matter of meaning is how the management and wider entity react.
It's here where people galvanise their long lasting opinions, not the actual act.
Employees have done shit things in abundance, it's a tricky thing for a company to handle granted but if done right it can almost completely reverse the tide of good-will. This is because we largely recognise that yes, any employee of a company can go rogue and do whatever so it can be hard to not have such an event occur within a large organization over the span of many years. Instead it shifts to how this event is handled, whether similar events have occured recently, how swiftly a response is made, what that response is and whether ongoing any shift or change. It varies from situation from situation but you get the gist of it.
In this case it's where most people feel GOG and CDP have let the ball drop.
Firing the person isn't the start and end of this, nor is it particularly worthy of praise (nor scorn either). You would expect any major company to fire someone over transphobic tweets. There's poorly worded tweets and then there's mocking the entire notion of gender identity. We've established there's internal scrutiny to be cast on the hiring and training process, but now it shifts to how they were fired and how that was communicated with those hurt.
"It's gotten too much" as the sole reason for firing someone for the above is pathetic, and – with that we have – honestly doesn't point to much more than "you've become more hassle than you're worth to us".
Firing the person certainly shows they understand that there was a negative reaction to their actions, but in isolation it doesn't indicate much more. You have a very real financial and business incentive to fire them, even outside of any concern for LGBTQ+ rights. So further clarification is needed at that stage, to see whether CDP/GOG understand the ramifications of the tweet within the community and how it's hurt players. You'd want a statement put out pretty prompty to reassure that, to which we got:
Which, as with the above, misses the mark again. "Sorry to all those offended" is not an apology for the action. It's an apology solely
if it offended you, when it should be an apology regardless because the issue is the mocking in the tweet not the reaction to it. Harming somoene is rarely anyone's intention, so again – nothing really much here. No outreach toward the trans and NB community, just a "sorry for the offense".
So it's felt that nothing was really understood in what was actually wrong in the scenario, despite a corrective action (the firing) being made. Then you have this pop up:
Which is responded to with this:
Even less understanding and zero apology. Which will lead onto..
