December 2011 – Media Culpa

London police name and shame rioters on Flickr

In August this year, the Manchester police in the UK tweeted the names and birth dates of people who have been convicted in relation to the UK riots. Yesterday, the Metropolitan Police Service in London published photos on its official Flickr page of 64 people who had been convicted for offences during the riots. Details of the convicted include name, birth date, street/location, offence and sentence. Among them for example, an 18-year old that was sentenced to five years and ten months for violent disorder, robbery and burglary.

The photos on Flickr are published with a Creative Commons license so that anyone is allowed to share and use the images.

I find this practice to be an appalling abuse of power and I hope it doesn’t spread to other parts of law enforcement. Police in Stockholm have announced they will increase its focus on social media in 2012, but I strongly believe they are more sensible than the police in the UK.

Hat tip to Neville Hobson for the link to this story.

Facebook brand pages under attack from activists – Chiquita next in line

The last few days have proven once again that open social media spaces such as Facebook pages and corporate blogs are becoming targets for disgruntled consumers or activists all over the globe. My recent posts covered how fans of Saab fill the Facebook wall of GM with negative comments and pictures. A week earlier, US appliance store Lowe’s Facebook page got more than 9,000 comments from people aggressively debating whether the company was right to pull its ads from the reality show All American Muslim.

Nescafé and #nescafail
The latest example comes from Hungary, where the local Facebook page of Nescafé came under siege. The company arranged a competition which asked people to send an idea for a project. Janos Szolnoki asked for some help from the community on the popular website 9gag in order to win the contest and win $5000, so he could help his little brother who is disabled. He gained an incredible 47,000 likes to his entry, but Nescafé still didn’t pick his entry for the final round (actually in line with the contest rules, but still…). This angered the online community that started tweeting with the hashtags #nescafail and #scumbagcafe. A Facebook page called Occupy Unfair Nescafé was launched and the local Hungarian Nescafé Facebook page was swamped with comments. Nescafé eventually responded, and did so quite well in my view.

More about this story here and here.

Chiquita delete negative comments
Yet another Facebook page that is under fire is the page of Chiquita. The company has announced it is boycotting oil from Canada’s oilsands, which has led to a counter-attack from Canadians arguing their oil is “ethical” in comparison to the oil from countries like Iran and Saudia Arabia. A campaign called Chiquita Conflict is using websites, Twitter and more to fight against the decision by the banana brand. Two Ministers of the Canadian Parliament have even tweeted about the reverse boycott.

A part of the campaign is to comment on the Chiquita Facebook page, which does not let anyone post on the wall, you can only comment on updates by the brand itself. Comments criticizing the company are being deleted after only a few minutes. Here are some exampels I managed to catch.

Negative comments to this post:

These comments were soon deleted:

Then a new negative comment was posted, but then later deleted:

Chiquita may not convince Canadians to buy more bananas, but by being extremely clear what they expect from visitors to the page, they at least have guidelines to lean against when they delete comments. Chiquita maintain tight control over the Facebook page. I’m not saying it is the perfect solution – what they gain in control, they lose in interactivity. But at least their page doesn’t look like GM’s.

From the Chiquita Banana Page Rules:

“We love it when our fans leave comments, photos, videos and links about Chiquita brands and products. Administrators will review page content to ensure that there are no offensive, inappropriate, or unrelated items and will moderate or remove content that is not in compliance with our terms and conditions.“

Facebook pages have become the new battleground for brand activism and brands will face more challenges as more consumers are realizing the power a few thousand comments can have on Facebook. Brands must pay attention and make sure they have their house (and guidelines) in order before disaster strikes. There’s no need to panic if you are well prepared, even if you become the subject of a social media crisis.

Hat tip to Markus Welin about Nescafé: http://twitter.com/#!/markuswelin

Update: One problem with monitoring negative comments is that the Facebook page administrator sleeps at night, but (some) activists are awake. And they take advantage of that fact. These comments have been up on the Chiquita page for 6-10 hours:

GM silent as Saab crisis on Facebook escalates

As I wrote yesterday, angry fans of the Swedish car brand Saab are taking out their frustration of the Saab bankruptcy on former owners GM and their Facebook page. GM has not written anything on their page since December 16 and the stream of negative comments and nasty images have not decreased. If the strategy from GM is to sit and watch while this blows over, they are running the risk of having their brand severely damaged in the process. The crisis shows no signs of having reached a pinnacle yet.

Images posted on the wall are getting worse and worse. Now, there is even an image portraying GM Chairman Daniel Akerson as Hitler.

A “Boycott General Motors” Facebook group has also been launched, currently attracting more than 100 people.

Even the General Motors page on Wikipedia is under attack.

In other words, the inactivity from GM may eventually hurt them more than if they took action. How long can GM tolerate this outrage on their Facebook page? One day, two days, a week? GM aren’t communicating almost anything about the Saab bankruptcy. One press statement was issued yesterday about the warranty programs for US Saab owners but other than that, GM are silent. So what should GM do?

The first thing they should have done a long time a go, was to have issued community guidelines or comments policy for the Facebook page. Without a policy in place, GM can’t remove anything from the page without running the risk of being accused of censorship.

Another thing GM might want to consider is actively communicating their view of the discussion, like Lowe’s Home Improvement did, after having the same kind of kerfuffle after pulling ads from the All American Muslim reality show.

We will continue to watch this crisis as it unfolds.

GM’s Facebook page attacked by angry Saab fans

On Monday, a Swedish court approved the Saab Automobile bankruptcy petition, filed by the company CEO Victor Muller, which may mean the end of the car brand Saab. Angry and sad Saab fans now blame GM for, among other things, blocking any possibility of a deal with Chinese automakers that could have saved the brand. Many of the fans have taken their frustration out on GM’s Facebook page, which currently is a mix of angry comments and images of Saab cars. A few GM supporters are also joining the discussion but they are clearly in minority.

Some examples of comments:

“So… Let me get this straight. When you guys are on the brink of Bankruptcy, you just go to the Government and have them bail you out. But when SAAB tries to save themselves you jerks screw them. Thank, you. Thank you very much. I hope you have a Merry Christmas.”

“Pathetic GM = Pathetic America”

“GM must die! Go to hell, GM!”

“I will never ever buy a car manufactured by GM.”

Also the pages of other GM brands have recieved comments from Saab fans, like the pages of Buick and GMC.

Here are some of the recent images posted on GM’s wall on Facebook:

GM hasn’t posted anything on its page for four days and seems to be staying out of the current “occupy GM” activity from Saab users. At least GM has not removed any of the negative comments, yet. We’ll see how much nastiness GM will tolerate.

Via SVT.se.

“Sweden” – the world’s most democratic Twitter account

What would you do if you were able to tweet on behalf of an entire country for a week? Would you recommend things to do and places to see, share opinions and ideas? Or would you use foul language, post pictures of fruit that look like genitals and post links to your own site? The former is at least the idea that one person should do for a week for Sweden’s official Twitter account @sweden, “the world’s most democratic Twitter account”.

The project Curators of Sweden is an initiative of the Swedish institute and VisitSweden. The idea is that:

“…each curator will share both their own and relevant third party’s thoughts, stories, information and other content that is somehow linked to Sweden. The idea is that the curators, through their tweets, create interest and arouse curiosity for Sweden and the wide range the country has to offer. The expectation is that the curators will paint a picture of Sweden, different to that usually obtained through traditional media.”

Now, what a brilliant idea to turn to the crowd and let ordinary Swedes share their views on Sweden. The only problem with letting go of control is that, well, you have little control. You see, there is one thing I’m not particulary impressed with in this campaign so far, and that is the actual tweeting.

The whole purpose of this activity is that the tweets should be linked to Sweden and create interest in Sweden. But I have a hard time seeing that tweets containing foul language, mentions of dreams of racist jokes or jokes about planning terrorist attacks on Twitter are what the Swedish Institute had in mind.

Or images of fruit that look like…

Then I also find it a bit unprofessional to use this opportunity to repeatedly link to your own website (in this case the news site Ajour.se).

My intention is not to pick on this tweeter. I’m not offended and I can see the humour in most of this. I also understand you must have a high tolerance for the type of content or it would run the risk of being boring. And there are plenty of links that have a Swedish connection (although many don’t). But there’s a time and place for everything, and as an observer, this is not the kind of content that I appreciate being posted on the @sweden Twitter account.

This leads me to question if the “curators of Sweden” were given any rules or guidelines and if so, what the account owners are doing to make sure these guidelines are followed. At least they articulate, in the disclaimer, that tweets may be removed, which indicates some sort of monitoring and rules.

“Si/VisitSweden do not endorse any Curator Submission or any opinion, recommendation, or advice expressed therein, and Si/VisitSweden expressly disclaims any and all liability in connection with Curator Submissions.

Si/VisitSweden reserves the right to remove Curator Submissions without prior notice.”

I really like the idea with Curators of Sweden and I hope it picks up some pace. Right now, I’m just underwhelmed.

Tweeting police in China and other social media news

Social media accounts of woman suing hospital to stay private
St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver and some of its doctors got sued by a patient who claims that she suffered a stroke due to malpractice during an operation. The stroke caused cognitive impairment of her thinking process and has negatively affected her social life, she claims. The defendant doctors applied to gain access to her Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as her laptop computer, iPhone and digital camera in order to probe her online and digital social life.

But in a ruling released on Tuesday, B.C. Supreme Court Master Grant Taylor dismissed the defendants’ application, saying the defendants should not be given “carte blanche to troll through the plaintiff’s correspondence.”

Delhi threatens crackdown on social media
Free speech is under pressure as India has threatened to take action against sites like Facebook, Google and Twitter, if they refuse to remove blasphemous and politically inflammatory material from their sites. Kapil Sibal, India’s telecommunications minister, has suggested that online content should be pre-screened and that social media sites need to find mechanisms to monitor and block the release of “offensive material”.

The controversial suggestion sparked a frenzy of online comments, with the hashtag #IdiotKapilSibal becoming a trending topic in India on Tuesday. Read more here and here.

China’s tweeting cops blog to keep peace
Micro blogging is catching on fast in China. The local Twitter-like networks Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo now have some 250m and 300m registered users, respectively.

Sina Weibo has launched a government edition and, so far, close to 19,000 officials and government departments have started tweeting, according to a report published last month. With more than 5,000 accounts, the police have been the most enthusiastic adopters. The tweeting Beijing police found that even in China, broadcasting on micro blogs doesn’t work very well:

“In the beginning, we put our press releases out there in bits and pieces, but people found it was too official,” says Mr Yang. “We had to learn to come up with things closer to their lives.”