Twitter gaffes, Facebook mistakes: the social media fails of 2014

How it feels when you #socialmediafail

The year of 2014 has been a wondrous time to be tweeting, Snapchatting, filtering and tagging.

Yet despite Facebook turning 10 and Twitter becoming a boisterous eight-year-old, there are still some stars, companies and politicians who've suffered embarrassing trip-ups.

As Instagram entered its fourth year, it gained more users than Twitter, meaning there are even more ways to humiliate yourself online.

The worst bit about #socialmediafails?

There's always someone ready to screenshot your error and pass it on.

That might be a good thing though. Some of these social media users should be stopped.

Beefy Botham

If you missed this one, be thankful.

The former England Test cricketer and Test team captain appeared to have tweeted a naked photograph, with the caption "What are you thinking...xx" from his account @beefybotham.

The 58-year-old was alerted to the tweet by footballer Robbie Savage, who said: "Mate, think you been hacked."

The cricket commentator said "not very funny" but later appeared to see the bright side, tweeting "I would like to thank the hacker....I've just got 500 hits in 20mins!!"

He later retweeted this cricket pun to his 320,000 followers.

Too many tweets makes a t....

Despite once warning of the dangers of social media by saying that "too many twits might make a..." the PM has had a few social media slip-ups himself.

Perhaps the most meme-d this year was this post.

Such is the nature of politicians on Twitter that David Cameron is mercilessly trolled whatever he puts up.

However this time, a few famous faces joined in.

Shortly after David Cameron's tweet, US comedian Rob Delaney posted this.

And then Sir Patrick Stewart, aka Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek and Professor Charles Xavier from X-Men, posted this.

Mr Cameron wasn't the only politician having a social media nightmare. MPs from other parties also got into hot water on social media.

Labour MP for Islington and formerly shadow minister Emily Thornberry lost her job because of this tweet:

This picture of a white van parked on the drive of a house in Rochester, with the St George's cross flag flying from the windows, was seen as a Labour politician being snobby about working people her party is supposed to represent.

She has since claimed she was simply surprised at the sight of a house covered in three St George's flags.

It didn't stop critics concluding that this tweet proved Labour is out of touch with ordinary voters.

Bad jokes

American Pie actor Jason Biggs was the centre of a Twitter storm after making a joke about MH17, the Malaysia Airlines plane that was shot down over Ukraine, killing 298 people.

Hours after the disaster, the Orange Is The New Black actor tweeted: "Anyone wanna buy my Malaysian Airlines frequent flier miles?"

After a social media backlash Biggs sought to defend his comments, saying that Twitter users didn't have to follow him. He later apologised, sending a series of tweets in an attempt to clarify his post.

Meanwhile, British comedian Richard Herring decided to tweet the following about Robin Williams, and the reaction from his followers was definitely not lol.

One person tweeted back "Because the hell of #depression and the loneliness and desperation of #suicide is so funny" while another said "that's brave".

He tried to defend his joke, saying that he suffers from depression himself and that "the best way out of it is to laugh in the face of this awful world."

He added: "humour is subjective" and that he would be happy for people to laugh about his death.

Pretending to be a terrorist is not a good idea

A 14-year-old Dutch girl learned this the hard way after tweeting American Airlines the above message.

The airline responded accordingly, followed by a series of panicked tweets from Sarah: "I'm so sorry I'm scared now" and "I was kidding pls don't I'm just a girl pls."

She later tweeted: "I always wanted to be famous, but I meant like Demi Lovato famous, not Osama bin laden famous."

The girl was arrested before being later released by Rotterdam police. Her Twitter account was deleted.

A year of selfie mistakes...

Michelle Obama didn't look very impressed with this selfie at Nelson Mandela's memorial

Politicians, stars and, um, everyone failed to resist the allure of the selfie.

However it was a school trip selfie too far for one student from Alabama, after she decided to pose with a corpse during a trip to her local university's biology department.

The sheet was removed from the body, which was being used by the university for research.

While the image was taken down from Instagram, that didn't stop it from being splashed all over local news. We're not including the picture here.

But she wasn't alone in misjudging when it's appropriate to take a selfie. NBA player Danny Green of the San Antonio Spurs posted one from the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. He quickly deleted the post and tweeted an apology.

However the best accidental "selfie" award has to go to this elderly woman at the Sochi Olympics.

Damn you autocorrect

How unfortunate. Especially when you are cross-posting from Instagram, duplicating the mistake.

The model later apologised for her post, congratulating Malala Yousafzai instead.

Hacked?

Rita Ora has been announced as a judge for the new series The Voice

Rita Ora was mocked on social media after a tweet saying that she would release new music if she got 100,000 retweets only got 2,000 retweets. It was seen of a bit of an embarrassment for the 23-year-old who has almost four million followers.

However she categorically denied sending the tweet, posting: "By the way my Twitter got hacked somebody is threatening to release new music I've worked really hard on.

"Nothing comes out until I'm ready.

"When it's ready we will drop music! Luckily I caught the hacker really quickly and deleted the post. Thank you!!"

However many on Twitter were sceptical, with one posting: "Remember when Rita Ora threatened to release new music? that was so scary"

Another posted:

Diplomatic #fail

The British embassy in Washington appeared to misjudge the national mood on 4 July, tweeting a picture of a White House cake surrounded by sparklers, "commemorating" the burning of the building 200 years ago.

The US presidential residence was set on fire by British forces in 1814 during the "War of 1812" with the United States.

The controversial tweet was posted on Sunday

A number of Twitter users said the embassy's tweet was "in poor taste".

The embassy later apologised for its earlier tweet. Luckily another war with the US was averted.

Sam Smith's rapid recovery

Telling porky pies becomes a little harder in the age of social media.

It's all too easy to forget your earlier post, but your followers won't.

Sam Smith got caught out during his tour in October, apologising to fans for leaving his gig without coming out to meet them.

"Still not feeling 100% and need to sleep" he tweeted.

Six hours later however, it seems he decided to go out after all.

"Best night EVER at Karaoke bar in Nashville!!!" he wrote on Instagram, posting a picture of himself.

Fans were not impressed.

If you are on social media don't laugh too hard...

Mistakes can happen to anyone.

'A' bit of a mistake

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