Consider your worst, most embarrassing intercultural blunder and then imagine it amplified a thousand fold or millionfold for everyone to see. Social networking is instant and, once released, it can’t be recalled. What follows is a partial list of extremely awkward social media slipups with intercultural implications. 

Consider the gravity of each offence; individually or in groups discuss each for its “takeaway,” the lesson to be learned from it. Contribute your own intercultural blunders that you or someone you know has experienced.
Explain the lessons learned.

a. Red Cross social media specialist Gloria Huang sent out the following tweet from the organization’s Twitter account @RedCross: “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer … when we drink we do it right #gettngslizzerd.” The late-night tweet stayed up for an hour. Huang’s boss, Wendy Harman, fielded calls in the middle of the night and took the tweet down.

b. Home improvement chain Lowe’s allowed a discussion on its Facebook page to get out of hand after withdrawing its advertising from a TLC reality show about Muslim families. The 23,000 comments on Facebook that followed were mostly critical of the company, but some praised the home improvement giant. Only when the media picked up the story did the company respond to offensive and racist posts by deleting all the messages and explaining its late intervention as “respect for the transparence of social media.”

c. Australian airline Qantas tried to lure its customers with gift packs to describe their “dream luxury in-flight experience.” However, this promotion coincided with grounded flights in response to ongoing strikes, and the passengers took to venting and griping, not praising.