The hashtag #JustWWIThings has enraged concerned gamers and posted several shots at EA as it implied being insensitive to the events happening in World War I. Several posts were shared over Twitter creating mixed reactions and most of it leaning towards mockery of the unfortunate world event. Is this a case of misused hashtag?
What happened?
At first, the official Battlefield account made a hashtag called #JustWWIThings and trend it at Twitter, probably as a way to market Battlefield 1 further. The hashtag became successful but it backfired. People are enraged with the structure of the hashtag itself and posts various mockery and some try to flag the official Battlefield account, obviously because it is disrespectful.
What were the Tweets?
A couple of tweets tried to market the hashtag #justWWIthings into popularity, the first one showing a soldier toting a flamethrower and captioned with: "When you're too hot for the club", the second tweet is an image of a soldier wielding a pistol while a blimp goes down behind him with the caption, "When your squad is looking on point."
People's reaction
Everyone thinks that it's has different tone to that what has been campaigned for the game itself, with Battlefield 1's missions being a relatively mournful and respectful theme and its multiplayer portrays what World War I was via its Operations mode. Still, people reacted upon it as if it is mocking WWI and the hashtag has been used by both trolls and people flagging down EA for the 'misuse' of hashtags.
What did EA do?
Just in, according to Eurogamer.com, EA has posted a comment to the issue expressing their apologies for whatever offense was caused by the hashtag #JustWWIThings and also admitting that the posts were disrespectful, something that is the opposite from what they have strived for.
"We would like to apologise for any offense caused by content in the last 24 hours posted on the @Battlefield Twitter account...It did not treat the World War 1 era with the respect and sensitivity that we have strived to maintain with the game and our communications."
