Starbucks is in hot water after launching a campaign that encourages baristas to talk about race relations with customers.

Critics have been lashing out at the company on social media, saying Starbucks is trying to capitalize on racial tension in the US.

Following the backlash, Starbucks' senior vice president of communications, Corey duBrowa, deleted his Twitter account, which only added to critics' outrage.



Twitter users claim they were blocked by duBrowa before his Twitter account went inactive.

—Miss Anne Dri (@OHTheMaryD) March 17, 2015

—feminism & burritos (@nashwakay) March 17, 2015

DuBrowa told Business Insider that he deleted his account because he was attacked by critics of the campaign. "I was personally attacked through my Twitter account around midnight last night and the tweets represented a distraction from the respectful conversation we are trying to start around Race Together," duBrowa said. "I’ll be back on Twitter soon." He said Starbucks would provide more context on the campaign at Wednesday's annual shareholder meeting.

Here's a cached version of duBrowa's Twitter account.