Race in Detroit is a very touchy topic. After all, we’ve had a series of events over the history of our city and region where race has become a flashpoint, and lives and property were destroyed.
That’s why when a tipster sent us this tweet, we were kind of appalled. @SocialInDetroit is one of Detroit’s larger Twitter accounts with nearly 22,500 followers, and although we kind of feel their feed is more noise than signal, this stuck out.
The eyes of the world are on #Ferguson … everyone enjoys a good race riot
— Social In Detroit (@SocialINDetroit) November 22, 2014
Then we found out something interesting. There’s a series of accounts tied to @SocialInDetroit, across an entire network. This same racist tweet was shared in Atlanta, Boston, Columbus, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Louisville, New Orleans, Milwaukee, and many other cities as it’s through a network where one tweet is often shared across a variety of accounts.
The network, which through a little cyber-sleuthing seems to be headed up by a guy named Lonny Dunn who also shares with us:
There will be a FREE Bills Jets game in Detroit. The @nfl couldn’t find anyone to buy them, so they are just leaving them on the sidewalk.
— Lonny Dunn (@ProNetworkBuild) November 22, 2014
It sure seems like a bad business idea for a group called “Social In Detroit” to be tweeting out these kinds of ignorant things to all of your followers. Paying attention, getting to know and listening to the city you’re trying to do business in is generally a good idea. We Detroiters deserve better.
