TOKYO (AP) — Another Twitter tangle embarrassed another American company.
Walt Disney Japan apologized Monday after a tweet sent from its corporate Twitter account wished readers "congratulations on a not special day" on the 70th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The company offered "deep apologies for causing discomfort," saying it would take care to manage the Twitter account more carefully.
The potential for tweet trouble on Twitter has been clear for some time, as scores of users have stumbled over their impolitic, inaccurate, incoherent or misunderstood missives in 140 characters.
Now add the already fraught problem of translating wildly different languages — in this case English into Japanese — and the difficulties are compounded.
In English, the tweet sent Sunday conveyed "A very merry unbirthday to you!" from a song in the 1951 Disney film Alice in Wonderland.
The Japanese translation described the day as "not special," prompting sharp criticism from readers who questioned the timing of the tweet. "Why are you offering congratulations, Disney-san?" said one.
It's never a good idea to make light of someone else's tragedy — or to seem to be making light through poor timing — but it's especially touchy for Japan, the only nation to have been bombed with the first two weapons of mass destruction.
Japan holds solemn ceremonies each year to mourn the more than 74,000 people killed in the bombing of Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. The bombing came three days after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, killing more than 100,000 outright and tens of thousands more over the following months.
Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II.
