Technology can really reach out and bite you sometimes. Take for example, the recent Twitter disaster in Sweden. When the government decided to let citizens tweet--in an attempt to increase tourism--they really didn't think it through. Many of the tweets had nothing to do with tourism, instead containing anti-Semitic comments as well as tasteless mentions of penises and urine in cereal.
An article in the New York Times explains the thought process that went into the concept. Tweeters were pre-approved. However, their tweets were not. I am a huge believer in freedom of expression. However, when someone is representing the entire country, it might be a good idea to preview the tweets prior to publication. Yes, this takes away from the spontaneity, but this is not citizen journalism. This is public relations. Am I wrong to feel this isn't censorship as much as it is filtering out the junk?
I also was reading about this social media "scandal". I was unsure as to how I felt about it. Technically, Twitter as well as other social media networks are in fact forms of freedom of speech and allows others to express their feelings and reach out. I am unsure as to whether or not there were specific requirements and even guidelines to which people were unable to disobey. I was not too surprised when I realized that the tweets were in no relation to the original purpose. Twitter, when first discovered was supposed to be for companies and other corporations and organizations to allow for attention and new audiences to their company now, when one signs on they see random tweets and sentences about what people are doing and how they feel. I believe it it used much more for a social and personal experience rather than organizations and something worth reading and helping. I completely agree with you on the fact that this is more of a representation of PR.
ReplyDeleteThe government had good intentions with this idea to increase tourism. Though they should have researched who they were appointing for these positions better. The people that they did appoint were tweeting more about their personal lives rather than touristy things and not to mention weren't that knowledgable about the country, areas and events. Isberg for example is just a teenager and doesn't know why they celebrate National Day and doesn't know what goes on in Stockholm. If they wanted to promote their tourism they should have hired tour guides or people that are real knowledgable in tourism in Sweden.
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ReplyDeleteAccording to Kelly Services Annual Survey "Social Media Penetrating the U.S. Workplace but Impact on Productivity Is Causing Unease". The article went to state that with the highly competitive professional and technical job market talented people are now networking on the job. About 12 percent of the ones surveyed agreed that social media in the work place does not affect their work performance. Almost half (51 percent) felt that social media had a negative impact on workplace productivity, and 57 percent felt mixing personal and profession caused problems in the workplace.
ReplyDeleteI am with the 12 percent who feel that social media in the workplace does not cause an interruption in their job performance. I see social media as a benefit to networking with other organizations and/or clients to promote better business. I am not opposed the other side of the coin where people can become immature and send out embarrassing comments that can affect the company’s image.
I agree, what you are proposing is not censorship, encouraging tourism is public relations task. Completing the task of increasing tourism by having the "approved" citizens tweet whatever they wanted wasn't well thought out and I do not think the government really understood Twitter as a social platform and how dangerous it would be to give anyone free reign over an effort of that nature. It can be challenging to keep professionals on point with a directive much less people who have not been educated about the nuances of the written word how to promote and idea. Encouraging tourists to visit their country should not be left to the random musings of the citizens, even though they have been approved, no one knew what they are going to day...as the article shows. Tourism brings money to a country. Making that happen is goal specific and public relations would be the discipline to make that happen in an effective, productive and positive way. Censorship would be the case if you twisted or changed information to make someone believe what you wanted them to believe. However, the goal was to present a picture of the beauty and attract tourist. There is a time, a place and a platform to encourage people to visit a country. This should not be the same platform that people post about urine in cereal and anti-Semitic comments.
ReplyDeleteI think it goes to a lot of things we have learned in class. Sweden was acting as a business in promoting the country to attract tourist. Knowing that the message would be out there and these "tweeters" would be acting as agents for the country. It seems like only common sense that you would have to have some control over the message. So with that being said we all have had some great ideas that sounded good in our head but upon execution not so much. In other social media news mashable had an article about the slowing of the U.S. growth of FaceBook. I guess we have finally reached the point where everybody and their mother is on FaceBook.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it is censorship at all! I believe that when people are acting on behalf of their country it is, like you said, a good idea to preview these tweets before publishing them. You cannot just have people going around trash talking an entire country when the entire country might not be the way one person makes it seem! I think tweeting about a country in hopes of attracting tourists is a great idea but at the same time, the government must take a bit of control when it comes to what is being published for the world to see!!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. It's not censorship. With me being in PR I without a shadow of a doubt would have to approve tweets. Like you said this represents the ENTIRE country. There needs to be some way to monitor what goes out. Twitter is a place where people really discuss the things that are on their mind. Not so true for businesses where there is promotion and things of that nature. But for the most part I see Twitter as a mental diary. People express the things that they see currently, are feeling and different experiences. Pre-approving these feelings and experiences is not out of the question. It just ensures that the you are actually getting out the message that you intend to get out.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you! If you're going to have something represent you as an entire country, you definitely need to get this pre-approved! By having something like this happen it can bring them a poor representation of their country. People do not realize how much social media is increasing all over the world and how much of an affect that it can have. This is also shown in this article I found bit.ly/OFGIcH. It shows how much of an impact social media has taken in the Arab World. A young women was locked inside her house for safety, but still was able to contact people all over the world through social media. Once her parents unplugged the internet, she resorted to her phone! This article is very interesting, everyone should read it!
ReplyDeleteApparently I live under a rock and completely missed this social media overseas disaster. After reading more about it, I'm really confused by the motives behind the idea. To allow one person to control social media accounts for one organization or business is typically a large task, but to grant a random citizen the right to tweet on behalf of an entire country... where were they going with this?! It seems so silly to me. I know that if my roommate was granted this responsibility on behalf of America, 98 percent of the tweets would be about bacon and cats. The views of one individual do not reflect the views of an entire country, as is obvious in this case with the anti-Semitic comments made. Any comment can be made about any topic from a personal account, however slanderous or offensive it may be, because it only represents the views of that individual. Sweden should rethink this one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you as well. I do believe that this is a case of filtering out the inappropriate tweets. The reason that the government let the citizens tweet was to promote tourism – I believe that they have the right to delete any tweets that didn’t reflect tourism. I believe that an entity has a right to promote as well as protect their brand. One of the aspects of Public Relations is controlling the message, which I believe is what the Swedish government did by removing the offending tweets.
ReplyDeleteI might be under a rock with Chantell too on this one! Betsy, this is the first time I'm hearing about this and I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it! This is kind of what happened to McDonald's when they encouraged people to tweet about their great experiences with the fast-food restaurant. Instead, people were posting about how they threw up after eating there and other disturbing stories. The has tag #I'mhatingit even started to trend for a few days because of it. McDonald's Twitter was completely filled with posts about how bad they are instead of how good they are. I agree with you in the sense that there is a difference between filtering junk and censoring content. I find it necessary to filter junk because real followers who care about the news and information available on Twitter do not want to have to scroll through comments about urine and such. Now if you cross the line and start "filtering" out opinions that you don't agree with but ARE applicable to the page, no bueno! I'm so excited as an avid PR enthusiast to enter the world of Social Media. It has made it so easy and fun to interact with and learn about the different audiences of a brand, product, person, issue, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhat a bad impression to give the rest of the world. If more than one person is tweeting about penises and peeing in cereal, I would wonder what the Swede's sense of humor is like.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a similar story (censorship) I read recently about a new fighter plane China has. The only reason that it got out was because of Chinese citizens witnessing the test flights and blogging about them. The question that arises is: Did China want this military information to get out? They are pretty prompt about removing unwanted Internet chatter before it becomes worldly knowledge.
This is why it is important to have a social media policy for external users. Although people are representing themselves, they are also representing a country in this case. They need to know that everything is game online.
This to me sounds so funny and almost unreal. I laugh because a whole control made the mistake that many individuals and business do all the time. They are quick to think of a great idea on how to make social media sites work for them and just act on them without thinking of the consequences or how the plan could go awry. I bet in hind site, like the others, they realize how foolish they were but in the social media world, it just won't go away.
ReplyDeletewhole "country"
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