Los Angeles TV station KTLA attracted outrage Friday when the word “n-----s” appeared on its official X account, in full and uncensored.
The post was swiftly deleted, but not before several users screenshot it. The outlet tried to explain the “error” with another X post minutes later: “KTLA experienced a technical error while adding language filters to our social media accounts, resulting in an offensive word being accidentally shared. We are appalled and apologize that this occurred.”
Many users, however, are not buying it.
People have been trolling the station on X ever since, as others seriously inquire as to how a “technical error” could lead to the N-word appearing in a post on its account. “It would be better if you said your account was hacked,” one wrote. “That wasn’t an accident, it was on purpose. SHAME ON YOU,” wrote another.
“I see that KTLA decided to go full David Duke today,” one user joked, as another added that the “social media intern is having a rough day.”
One quipped that Papa John’s founder John Schnatter was its new CEO, following his 2021 comment about trying to “get rid of this N-word in my vocabulary.” (He later apologized, calling his remarks “inappropriate and hurtful.”) Another speculated that the airplane passenger from the viral video seen hurling the slur may have gotten control of KTLA’s account.
One sympathetic commenter tried to help the station explain the mishap.
When an X user replied to the station’s apology post that the “highly offensive” term should have never made it into a post, one person co-signed the station’s explanation that “code” could be to blame.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of this but in the algorithm for these things they have to include certain words to a section of the code to prevent users from actually posting them,” they wrote. Slurs may be included in filters used to detect and remove harmful language—but how that language would make it into the “post” box on the platform remains unexplained.
One Facebook user replied to the station’s apology on that platform, “So who got fired before or after this error?”
