According to an IAC spokesman in a statement:
"The offensive comment does not reflect the views and values of IAC. We take this issue very seriously, and we have parted ways with the employee in question. There is no excuse for the hateful statements that have been made and we condemn them unequivocally.
We hope, however, that time and action, and the forgiving human spirit, will not result in the wholesale condemnation of an individual who we have otherwise known to be a decent person at core."
Justine Sacco had tweeted the statement in the picture above from an airport in London before she left on Friday for Cape Town, South Africa.
Her tweet went viral and created a social media firestorm.
Sacco was the head of corporate communications for IAC, the media company chaired by Barry Diller that operates websites such as The Daily Beast, About.com, CollegeHumor and Match.com. Her whole job revolved around communicating with reporters — which made her Twitter comment about Africa all the more shocking.
Sacco was in London and about to begin a long vacation in South Africa when she wrote the message.
Her Twitter account was relatively obscure when she posted it — fewer than 500 people were following it. But the message went viral on Friday, unbeknownst to Sacco, who apparently did not have Internet access on her flight.
Websites such as Valleywag and Buzzfeed highlighted Sacco's account, and soon it had thousands of followers — and thousands of harsh replies directed at it. Some were downright hateful.
On Friday evening a Twitter hashtag, #HasJustineLandedYet, became a running commentary about Sacco.
She's yet to say anything about her action.
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