It’s all fun and games until someone loses a paycheck.
For as long as there have been social media accounts for Android brands, there have been users that seek out the most egregious of social media SNAFUs: using an iPhone. Users have skimmed the metadata on pictures looking for hints of an iPhone lens and zoomed in on brand ambassadors seen with iPhones in the wild. On Twitter, this game is ridiculously easy, as Twitter slaps “Posted via Twitter for iPhone” at the bottom of iOS-posted tweets. It’s gone on for years, but usually the most to come of them is a social media marketer apologizing or a brand ambassador getting fined for a breach of contract.
Well, Huawei brought down the hammer on the workers that the social media police caught this week.
That was fast pic.twitter.com/y6k0FJF7Gq
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) January 1, 2019
The New Year’s greeting from Huawei was originally tweeted by an iPhone, which was quickly called out by YouTuber Marques Brownlee and ridiculed by his followers. Huawei blamed an outside social media company contracted for Huawei’s international accounts, deleted the original iPhone-posted tweet and posted it again via the more innocuous Twitter Media Studio.
Normally, that would be the end of it, but Huawei apparently decided to make an example of the incident. According to Bloomberg, Huawei has given a “single-level demotion” to the head of its digital marketing team and one other involved employee and a deduction of roughly $730 from their monthly salary.
Happy #2019 🎆 from all of us at Huawei. Our resolution this new year is to give you more reasons to connect to those you care about. pic.twitter.com/utcbQYN0Pt
— Huawei Technologies (@Huawei) January 1, 2019
It’s a surprisingly strong punishment for what is a relatively common digital marketing faux pas, but Huawei has been having a rough month between bans, arrests, and secret labs. If nothing else, congratulations, Twitter Police, you held Huawei’s social media department accountable and helped two employees come home with 5,000 yuan less in their paychecks.
