An Australian expat, Sonny Truyen, was fired within one day after he called Singapore a “fucking shit country” because he couldn’t play Pokemon Go.
Pokemon Go was initially released on 6 July in New Zealand and Australia only, with other countries being added to its list within the week. It has since been highly successful amongst mobile gamers.
Truyen also implied that Singapore was full of stupid people. After one commenter asked, “Why would you call Singapore a “fucking shit country”?”, Truyen replied, “cos its full of stupid like you”.
As a result, 99.co, the company that Truyen had been the digital marketing specialist for, received a number of complaints via Facebook.
CEO of the company, Darius Cheung, issued an apology on the company’s site, condemning Truyen’s behaviour as “rude” and confirming that his contract had been terminated. In a statement, Cheung said,
“I apologise on behalf of 99.co, we pride ourselves to be a principled company that celebrates values like diversity and equality. We take responsibility for the public behaviour of any employee or consultant affiliated with us as a reflection of the company.”
Cheung added that as a Singaporean, he cares deeply about the future of the country in which he built his team up and calls home.
Singapore has previously seen other cases of its citizens taking to the internet in protest about certain insensitive comments. NTUC fired Amy Cheong in 2012 after she posted insensitive remarks about Malay weddings. Anton Casey was also fired from Crossinvest in 2014 for calling locals who take public transport “poor”.
Twitter users have since supported 99.co for their decision to axe Truyen from their company.
Dear https://t.co/XYbxZGaBDR, your decision to fire Sonny Truyen was 100 per cent correct https://t.co/7p41VeBNpd #Web #Asia
— Mehul (Mike) Patel (@TheMehulPatel) July 11, 2016
#Australian #SonnyTruyen sacked immediately for insulting #singapore just bcoz #PokemonGO isnt available yet. Good riddance!
— abujalma m noh (@abujalma) July 11, 2016
On the plus side for #SonnyTruyen, at least he has plenty of time to play #PokemonGO now. And he can go back to Australia to play it.
— Dom (@contrabandkarma) July 11, 2016
