HMV workers take over official Twitter feed to vent fury over sacking

Disgruntled HMV employees briefly took over the company's official Twitter account on Thursday to express their extreme dissatisfaction at being sacked by the ailing retailer.

The 92-year-old music chain called in the administrators just over two weeks ago, putting 4,500 jobs at risk.

On Thursday afternoon one or more angry employees took to the microblogging site to vent their spleen and "tweet live from HR". They managed to post seven subversive messages before the company regained control of the account and deleted the posts.

"There are over 60 of us being fired at once! Mass execution, of loyal employees who love the brand. #hmvXFactorFiring," read the first tweet.

"Sorry we've been quiet for so long," went another. "Under contract, we've been unable to say a word, or – more importantly – tell the truth."

The first hint that the management was on to them came a little after 2.30pm, when someone tweeted: "Just overheard our Marketing Director (he's staying, folks) ask 'How do I shut down Twitter?'"

The angry employees were quick enough to get a brief explanation of their protest on to the site before it was removed.

"Under usual circumstances, we'd never dare do such a thing as this," they said. "However, when the company you dearly love is being ruined … and those hard working individuals, who wanted to make hmv great again, have mostly been fired, there seemed no other choice."

They also went on to claim that the official HMV account had been set up by an unpaid intern two years ago.

This article was written by Sam Jones, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 31st January 2013 15.08 Europe/London

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image: © Howard Lake

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