Canadiens’ automated Twitter celebration sends offensive tweets

The Montreal Canadiens reached one million Twitter followers on Tuesday and to mark the occasion the team’s account made automatic responses to tweets from fans. 

Because Montreal’s Twitter account was automatically responding to all fans, there appeared to be no screening process when the account replied to the different names. This led to a string of tweets from the Canadiens account to different Twitter handles with offensive names. 

Here was how the process worked:

To celebrate the occasion, the team would like to thank you! Over the course of the week, by tweeting using the hashtag – #CanadiensMTL1M – and by following the team on Twitter, you’ll receive a special message from a player. Then, if you tweet using the “surprise” word accompanied by the #CanadiensMTL1M hashtag, you’ll receive an additional tweet containing another surprise.

The Canadiens sent out tweets apologizing for the problem, saying the issue had been fixed.

“Automated messages were sent from our account tonight resulting from a filtering issue in our campaign to thank our 1M Twitter followers,” the Habs official Twitter account said. “We apologize for the offensive messages and have fixed the issue so it won’t happen in the future.” 

Below are images of some of the tweets. Warning, they are offensive in nature

This is similar to when the NFL’s New England Patriots in 2014 when they reached one million Twitter followers. The Patriots also sent out an automated tweet that was offensive.

The Canadiens said their Twitter celebration had to do with regional pride. With over one million followers they became the single-most followed Quebec-based account and only Quebec-based brand to hit one million followers on a social media platform. In the NHL, only the Chicago Blackhawks and Toronto Maple Leafs have also hit one million followers.

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper