In-Flight Wifi Provider Gogo Apologizes for Justine Sacco Tweet

In-flight wifi provider Gogo has apologized for using the controversy surrounding Justine Sacco’s “AIDS” tweet to market its service.

On Friday, the company tweeted:

The “something stupid” Gogo referred to is a tweet by Justine Sacco, a corporate communications staffer at Barry Diller’s media company IAC.

Also read: Justine Sacco Deletes ‘Hope I Don’t Get Aids’ Tweet – and Her Account – After Landing in Africa

The spokeswoman gained notoriety for a tweet she wrote before a trip to Cape Town, South Africa that offended many and generated loads of social media responses.

It read: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just Kidding. I’m white!”

Twitter

Although Gogo got a mix of responses to its tweet, it defended the decision when one person called their action shameful.

On Saturday morning, they had a change of heart and tweeted the following apology to Sacco.

Also read: Barry Diller’s IAC Responds to PR Chief’s ‘Offensive’ Tweet About AIDS

A Gogo spokesman Steve Nolan explained to AllThingsD that the company is reviewing the tweet as it’s not within their policy to get involved in such issues.

“We feel it’s not our role to engage those types of borderline topics to raise some activity in social media,” he said. “Our policy is pretty simple: to try to keep people informed or connected in-flight. It’s more of a customer-care operation than to try to stir the pot.”

As for Sacco, she later deleted her account, presumably upon arriving to her destination and seeing that her employer had denounced the tweet and that it had generated so much attention.

Also read: New York Times Journalist Mocked on Twitter After Las Vegas Sun Scoops Paper

Sacco’s employment status wasn’t immediately clear as of this posting, but IAC had removed her name from its website‘s media contacts list by the time she landed.

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