WATCH: Toronto Fire Service suspends two firefighters for tweets. Alan Carter reports.
TORONTO – Two Toronto firefighters are the latest example of how a tweet or two can have some serious consequences.
Toronto Fire has removed two firefighters from duty after a series of inappropriate and sexist tweets that were made public in a report by the National Post.
The Post linked the accounts to two firefighters in Scarborough.
Read More: Tweeter beware: How our online lives put our professional lives at risk
According to the National Post, a tweet sent from the account of Matt Bowman (@Hero_Matt) in November read, “Reject a woman and she will never let it go. One of the many defects of their kind. Also weak arms.”
Another tweet, sent in March from the same account, read, “I’d never let a woman kick my ass. If she tried something I’d be like Hey! you get your bitch ass back in the kitchen and make me some pie!”
A separate account, linked to a user named Lawaun Edwards (@Bassfire3680), also came under fire in the report for joking about women abuse.
The user responded to a tweet sent on June 5 from Dean Somerset (@deansomerset) – a fitness trainer from Edmonton according to his Twitter account. Somerset’s tweet read, “Just stood behind a girl who used the word ‘like’ roughly 300 times to order her coffee. Stay in skool, kidz.”
According to the Post’s report, Lawaun Edwards (@Bassfire3680) replied, “@deansomerset would swat her in the back of the head been considered abuse or a way to reset the brain?” To which Somerset replied, “@Bassfire3680 Maybe foreplay?”
Global News was unable to verify the original tweets reported by the Post. At time of publishing a search for the @Hero_Matt Twitter account revealed that the user had been suspended and the @Bassfire3680 account had been set to private.
The National Post reported Wednesday that Toronto Fire Chief Jim Sales confirmed both men were no longer on duty.
This report comes just a week after a GTA-based Twitter user’s public request for a drug dealer to deliver some goods to his workplace went viral after York Regional Police (YRP) retweeted the request.
The Twitter user later confirmed via his account that he had been fired from his job at Mr. Lube, where he requested the drugs be delivered.
The story garnered international media coverage – due in part to YRP’s comical response – and reignited the conversation about how social media can have consequences to our professional lives.
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