Clorox in hot water over 'bleach' tweet as emojis become more racially diverse

The household products company Clorox has apologised for a social media misstep after it sparked outrage by tweeting “where’s the bleach” in reference to last week’s introduction of new “emoji” cartoons for iPhones that include several faces of black and brown people.

The maker of Clorox bleach said it was attempting a humorous reference to other emoji symbols for objects like toilets and bathtubs that people use bleach to clean.

But the post hit a nerve when news stories and online discussions were focused on the addition of more racially diverse faces to the symbols people use in emails and text messages.

Clorox, based in Oakland, California, followed up shortly with a post that said: “Wish we could bleach away our last tweet.”

The company also apologised in a formal statement.

“We apologise to the many people who thought our tweet about the new emojis was insensitive,” said Molly Steinkrauss, a spokeswoman for the company.

“It was never our intention to offend. We did not mean for this to be taken as a specific reference to the diversity emojis – but we should have been more aware of the news around this. The tweet was meant to be light-hearted, but it fell flat.”