NPSC Blog

Some of you may have seen the post a couple of weeks ago on TechCrunch that caused a fair amount of comment and controversy in the blogosphere. The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos was a spectacularly ill-advised and unintentionally revealing account of one marketer’s techniques for placing client videos in prominent spots on the range of social sites. Dave Fleet was first of the mark with a very good post highlighting the issues.

Like Dave, what I found most interesting (and that was a tough call given the amount of dubious and unethical practice this guy was self-servingly touting) was his –and by extension– his firms’ attitude toward moderating comments. The heading gives you a pretty good idea of their contorted approach to the concept of integrity:

Commenting: Having a conversation with yourself

Also, we aren’t afraid to delete comments – if someone is saying our video (or your startup) sucks, we just delete their comment. We can’t let one user’s negativity taint everyone else’s opinions.
Dan Ackerman Greenberg

You have to respect their self-styled lack of fear in deleting criticism, don’t you? I certainly admire his courage for sharing his venal, duplicitous professional practices with us.

Of course, this is not an isolated instance. It seems the growth in influence of social media is accompanied by an increasing willingness to try and control the message using a lamentably old media mindset, albeit assisted by some very clever technology.

Another blogger details how the San Francisco Chronicle uses software to continue to display deleted comments to the people who posted them, leaving them completely unaware that their views have been hidden from everyone else that visits the site. Subsequent commenters to the post then reveal that other sites are using similar techniques.

All of this has led to the obvious Web 2.0-type social media solution: a forum for people to post their comments that have been censored by moderators on other sites. don’tcensorme.com claims that

Your right to free speech online is at the mercy of website moderators. There are no checks in place for moderators online. This site aims to change that and put the balance of power back in your hands.

I don’t think freedom of speech is really at risk here; it seems more a case of an inept attempt at reputation management by suppressing critical comment. The important lesson to takeaway is that, no matter how devious or cunning you are, your perfidy will be exposed and your reputation will be forever linked (and cached) to the evidence.

For public sector communicators there is more at stake. Agencies cannot afford to risk their reputations like this; we should openly suffer the slings and arrows and attempt to build our reputation by engaging with substantive criticism, rather than deleting dissent:

Fairness: social media is about reciprocity, if you are going to engage and invite comment then accept the good with the bad. Post a very clear comments policy and stick to it. Don’t delete comments because they are critical of your agency or policies.
Principles of public sector social media.

Ultimately, private sector organizations that are exposed behaving unethically will answer to their customers or the market. Government agencies endure; our job is to build trust, not to gamble with it.

Photo: spacesuitcatalyst.