5 Things You Need to Know About Justine Sacco's Twitter Fail

Yep, that's a real tweet. By a real person. Who's probably about to be unemployed.

IAC owns a number of websites you may recognize, including Match.com, OkCupid, CollegeHumor, and Urbanspoon. Justine Sacco is (was) a public relations representative for the company, so you'd think she'd know better. Apparently, she doesn't.

The company had this to say about the incident:

This is an outrageous, offensive comment that does not reflect the views and values of IAC. Unfortunately, the employee in question is unreachable on an international flight, but this is a very serious matter and we are taking appropriate action.

Even Google got in on the action!

Yep, she's a meme now.

UPDATE:

IAC says they have "parted ways" with Sacco, and she's released the following statement:

Words can not express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa, who I have offended due to a needless and careless tweet. There is an AIDS crisis taking place in this country, that we read about in America, but do not live with or face on a continuous basis. Unfortunately, it is terribly easy to be cavalier about an epidemic that one has never witnessed firsthand. For being insensitive to this crisis – which does not discriminate by race, gender or sexual orientation, but which terrifies us all uniformly – and to the millions of people living with the virus, I am ashamed. This is my father's country, and I was born here. I cherish my ties to South Africa and my frequent visits, but I am in anguish knowing that my remarks have caused pain to so many people here; my family, friends and fellow South Africans. I am very sorry for the pain I caused.