Tricked Into Quoting Hitler, Coca-Cola Suspends Automated Tweet Campaign

Gawker prank led to #MakeItHappy images drawn from Mein Kampf

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Coca-Cola has suspended its #MakeItHappy automated social campaign after a prank from Gawker had the brand inadvertently tweeting out several lines from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

The soda brand's campaign, introduced during Sunday's Super Bowl, encouraged Twitter users to mark negative tweets with the #MakeItHappy hashtag. Then, the brand turned those words into cute art images using ASCII lettering code.

But Gawker soon noticed a tweet from Coke's Twitter account that had turned the "Fourteen Words" slogan of white nationalism into an ASCII dog.

"Even when the text is shaped like a dog, it is disconcerting to see Coca-Cola, the soda company, urge its social media followers to safeguard the existence and reproduction of white racists," wrote Gawker editor Max Read. 

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