I already said it in this thread, but seeing how people here are trying to show HereForTheBeer how s/he's wrong and why Linko did nothing wrong at all, I'll repeat it once more.
Read again what HereForTheBeer wrote:
HereForTheBeer: Folks, it isn't about SJWs and snowflakes and such. It's about professional incompetence in a Public Relations position for a retail outlet.
[...]
The point is, if the PR people do their job right in the first place then they won't lose sales from either side, because
with good PR efforts, stuff like this does not happen in the first place. That's the essence of the post and not "Linko posted something offensive". Honestly... Everyone knows how "SJWs" (or whatever you want to call those Twitter-radicals) will react to anything that's not 100% supportive of their cause. And yes, you're right, the tweet wasn't against their cause or offensive in any way. But it wasn't supportive either. And nowadays that's enough to cause a shitstorm. It's a PR guy's job to know this. Heck, everyone knows that.
Linko should've known how this will end. Even I would've known it and I don't use any Twitter and still have no idea how "social justice", gaming journalism and gamers (in general) are connected... Why would gamers be against LGBTQ- and women's rights? And why would game journalists be against gamers? WTF?!? I don't get it! But even though I don't get it, I'm perfectly aware that there's some kind of an insane internet crusade going on! As a PR dude of a gaming store, I wouldn't touch anything that's related to it. Especially not the hashtag of a group that obviously hates gamers and the gaming industry! That was clearly a mistake. And knowing how heated this whole topic still is after all those years, it IS a PR fail.
Again: Using some good old common sense, I don't think that someone should be fired over this crap. Kicking people out of their jobs because an internet hate mob demands it is absolutely despicable! Instead they should've told Linko to stay out of anything that's (clearly) related to SJWs, GamerGate or any other group that's involved in this online war. Then they could've apologized for using that hashtag. AND make clear that it wasn't offensive in any way (
wasn't - not "wasn't meant") and find some nice words to translate "Our only fault was to be stupid enough to step into this minefield" into PR language.
Yes, Linko made a mistake. But (if we put everything back into proportion) it was only a small one. The bigger mistake is on GOG's side. Firing an employee over a non-issue (using a hashtag that means something else is kinda stupid, but a very common thing to do nowadays), just because the we're-blowing-things-out-of-proportion-warrioirs demanded it, only gave a group that shouldn't exist even more significance. They're internet trolls who found a way to affect peoples real lives. What they do doesn't help the cause they're supposedly fighting for. The world needs to wake up and show these punks what they are: nothing. Firing people because they demand it is the exact wrong way.