Canada PoliticsThe Twittersphere mocks Stephen Harper during cabinet shuffle announcement
You have to commend Stephen Harper and the Prime Minister's Office for announcing their new cabinet on Twitter on Monday morning.
As a techie friend of mine put it: 'welcome to the world of social media in 2013!'
[ Related: Stephen Harper shuffles his cabinet: includes eight newcomers, four new women ]
Unfortunately, it didn't go all that smoothly for the PMO.
One of Harper's first tweets, on Monday morning, was about him welcoming four new women to cabinet.
Proud to be naming four new strong, capable women to the Ministry later on today. #shuffle13 #cdnpoli
— Stephen Harper (@pmharper) July 15, 2013
That received a little bit of backlash:
Dear Stephen Harper: If you replace the word women with men, this is a ridiculous comment, right? Right. #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/BCgYiZB8xx — Heather Buttrum (@heather_on3) July 15, 2013
As opposed to weak, incapable women? #sigh MT @pmharper: Proud to be naming 4 new strong, capable women to the Ministry. #shuffle13 #cdnpoli — Katie Telford (@telfordk) July 15, 2013
@telfordk @pmharper So condescending - if we were speaking about men, "strong" and "capable" would be assumed.
— Alex Howell (@altheowl) July 15, 2013
Four women, @pmharper? That's smalltime. Mitt Romney had binders full of women for his cabinet. — Jason Markusoff (@markusoff) July 15, 2013
And then Harper — or his staffers — made some mistakes with a minister's Twitter handle.
When announcing that Bernard Valcourt would remain as Aboriginal Affairs Minister, they used the handle @MinBValcourt instead of the correct handle which is @Min_BValcourt.
An enterprising individual jumped on that mistake and launched a fake Bernie Valcourt account:
@pmharper i will try my best! ...u sure, tho bro?
— Fake Bernie Valcourt (@MinBValcourt) July 15, 2013
@pmharper i do have some ideas about not treating aboriginal people like shit tho. maybe like, uh, increase educational funding — Fake Bernie Valcourt (@MinBValcourt) July 15, 2013
Alas, the PMO corrected their mistake. Fake Bernie took it in stride.
looks like i was already fired. prob 4 the best.
— Fake Bernie Valcourt (@MinBValcourt) July 15, 2013
looks like @pmharper even tries to muzzle his fake ministers #unsuspended — Fake Bernie Valcourt (@MinBValcourt) July 15, 2013
Yup - welcome to the world of social media in 2013!
(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)
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