BBC microsite openly labels Facebook users 'saddos'

by Stevie Smith - Jul 6 2010, 10:30

The BBC’s efforts to increase interest in the 2012 Olympics by tapping Facebook’s millions of users has taken a hit this week after one of Auntie Beeb’s less competent employees accidentally posted an unfinished microsite that insulted the very social networking audience it was supposed to attract.

As the above image captured by The Media Blog clearly shows, the BBC’s half-baked Olympics site (now pulled) included a handy ‘Follow us’ section for Facebook users, where visitors keen on keeping up with the latest updates and events were openly branded as “saddos” for using social networks.

And, seemingly not content with offending Facebook users, the placeholder site may have also drawn a frown of indignation from Buckingham Palace considering its wholly inaccurate pictorial news link section suggested Her Majesty The Queen was perhaps a member of the Pakistan hockey team.

“Thanks for flagging this – clearly a mistake, and we are looking into how a test page came to be published,” said someone purported to be Ben Gallop, head of BBC Sport Interactive, via The Media Blog’s comments section.

“The 2012 Olympics site is still being built, but needless to say some of the placeholder text that was up there at the weekend was inappropriate and we apologise for that,” he added.

In offering its reaction to the unfortunate gaff, The Media Blog intimated that although the BBC is clearly working to encourage employees to embrace the traffic potential of social networks such as Facebook, there are internal forces at work that still have no respect for the targeted demographic.

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