UPDATED: A Newport Councillor has today (Saturday) slammed an outrageous tweet by bus operator Southern Vectis that has been labelled as ‘blatantly sexist’ and has called for an apology to be made.
Cllr Chris Whitehouse, Conservative for Newport West, has said he is appalled by a tweet made late last night that commented on females walking through the bus station. He says the comment, which classed the woman as ‘stunning’, is crude, crass and chauvinistic.
Speaking this morning, Cllr Whitehouse said:
“I am frankly appalled to have my attention drawn to an outrageous tweet from the official Southern Vectis twitter feed late last night.
“The women of the Island deserve better than to be ogled and tweeted about in such a crude, crass and chauvinistic manner.
“Southern Vectis should withdraw the tweet, apologise to the Island’s women, identify the staff member who posted this completely unacceptable remark and take appropriate disciplinary action without delay.”
One member of the public has spoken out on Twitter and has said that she is “disturbed that a staff member is sitting there ogling women while he/she tweets for their company [Southern Vectis]”. Another said: “creepy. Glad I don’t use buses!”.
At the time of this publication, the tweet remained live on the social networking site (11:30).
UPDATE @ 18:30 – Southern Vectis have issued a statement this afternoon regarding the Twitter incident.
Matt Kitchin, Southern Vectis’ General Manager said:
“We are aware of an inappropriate tweet, posted to our official account yesterday evening. Whilst we encourage our controllers to post in a friendly and human manner, we acknowledge that this tweet was completely unacceptable and we apologise, unreservedly, for any offence it may have caused.
“The tweet has been removed from our account and we are now formally dealing with this matter internally”.
