Coastguard fury at online spoof (From Bournemouth Echo)

Coastguard fury at online spoof

1:00am Monday 8th June 2009 in Search By Steven Smith

SWANAGE Coastguards have reacted angrily to an online writer who set up a spoof Twitter account in their name.

A user of popular social networking website Twitter has set up an account in the name of the organisation, which comes to the aid of those in difficulty in the water 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The blogger posted tongue-in-cheek comments regularly - although the account was deleted as soon as the coastguard complained.

One example was “We’re all on a staff away day today (paintballing, yeah!), so if you need us, just sit tight and we’ll get to you some time tomorrow-ish”.

Swanage Coastguard station office Ian Brown branded the poster “totally irresponsible”.

He said: “Our website is a website set up by the team. It’s not an official Coastguard website, neither is our blog, and has a disclaimer on it, but it’s for the community and locals and has a very strict code.

“Idiots that do this sort of thing are time wasters and I hope not too many people are using this.

“It’s not good for our image, it counteracts our safety aim. It’s totally irresponsible.”

Other examples of posts on the Twitter feed included “The only bummer about being a coastguard is when you have to go out in a boat”, “Off out to get a sandwich. Stay safe till I get back” and "When on a boat, don't worry about proper navigational systems, a TomTom will do."

Mr Brown added: “It goes against everything we have worked for. We will put something on our blog to say this is nothing to do with us.”

Fred Caygill, from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, condemned the site and said the official feed could be found at twitter.com/mca_media.

The official websites can be found at swanagecoastguard.org.uk and mca.gov.uk.

In an email to the Echo the anonymous Tweeter (in the comments below as Notacoastguard) said:

"What started as a joke between a few mates very quickly got a bit of a following (a whopping 40 or so people) in a very short space of time.

"As far as I know, everyone who followed the updates did so because they understood it was creative humour, not because they thought I was a real coastguard.

"To call what I did "irresponsible" is a bit over-the-top. Peurile perhaps, but having a peurile sense of humour was never a crime.

"It was always my intent that if anybody legitimately complained about what I was writing, I would stop immediately.

"In fact I did this as soon as the angry tweets from @swnHMCoastguard were brought to my attention: I deleted the whole lot.

"At no point did anybody from Swanage Coastguard contact me directly, if they had done, they would've found me very reasonable and genuinely mortified to learn that they were upset.

"I have tried to offer a (qualified) apology to the guys in Swanage. I do feel a bit silly.

"Nevertheless I think most people could see that this was in no way whatsoever an attempt at slander, racism or any of the other whacky accusations being sent my way."