Angry Birds: Part 2 of 2

Why this topic caught my fancy is that very recently I was involved in a little skirmish with ‘Fashion & You’ on twitter.

I had ordered a set of cushion covers for a birthday gift sometime in mid August. September came and went and there was no peep from them. No intimation about where the consignment was, whether the shipment had even been dispatched, nothing. When I followed up with them towards the end of September, they said four to five weeks delivery time was standard.

In this day and age of around 3 days delivery time from online shopping portals, four to five weeks seems criminal. But it was apparently mentioned somewhere in the fine print, so I had no cause to get annoyed with them.

Come mid October and I was still awaiting the cushions. After a few failed attempts to get a response from their customer service number, I was thoroughly peeved.

I had been hearing so much about consumer complaints getting a better response on social media, I decided to give it a try.Twitter worked. Although I had to keep chasing them for a response, my money was refunded back to me on the last day of October.

But after reading about the arrest of Mr Ravi Srinivasan, I went back and re-read my tweets!

I don’t think I was rude. I was irritated, disappointed and thoroughly pissed off. But I wasn’t rude. It was a pre-paid order and I really wanted to know what the heck was going on.

With the massive reach of social media, I can clearly see why resolving an issue on social media is important. But why would an organization respond to an irate customer on social media and not to a consumer complaint on another medium? Just doesn’t make business sense.

Though personally, I have not had much to complain to Vodafone but to my knowledge, the Vodafone India twitter handle is quite particular about resolving consumer complaints quickly. And even they were not so amenable to ‘social’ feedback till some time ago.

In June 2011, Vodafone India sent a legal notice to Dhaval Valia, who ranted about its 3G services on Facebook, asking him to take down the ‘defamatory’ posts. Dhaval, who used to be a Loop Mobile customer before, had switched to Vodafone in April to use its 3G services. However, it was not available where he lives, contradicting Vodafone’s claims.

The notice asked him to refrain from making any comments against the company and also remove the posts in 48 hours.

In reply, Dhaval had mentioned his plans to initiate consumer and criminal cases against the company, questioning the methods Vodafone had used to trace his updates, since he had posted them in a private environment.

Post this, Vodafone Essar withdrew the notice in good faith. They further went on to say something to the effect of - “Vodafone Essar would also like to take this opportunity to inform that as a customer obsessed organization, we have always welcomed critical feedback and suggestions from both direct and social media customers as it helps us to constantly improve ourselves to serve their discerning needs”.

I wonder who instilled this ‘good faith’.

Was it Facebook who realized the extent of access given to Vodafone was going to be open for all to see or was it Vodafone realized the PR nightmare this was about to become?

I understand the need to exploit this mine of personal information people so readily share on social media. There are marketing businesses built on top of the idea that third parties can get access to data on social networking websites. But what exactly is the extent of privacy that we are guaranteed when we post/tweet about something?

We all know that Facebook tracks our behavior while we are logged on the site. How many of us are aware that the tracking continued even when we log off?

In 2011, Facebook was involved in a scandal regarding this breach.

Facebook admitted that it had been watching the web pages its members visit even after logging out of the site.  The social networking site was forced to confirm that it has been constantly tracking its 750 million users, even when they are using other sites.

Facebook said that the huge privacy breach was simply a mistake - that software automatically downloaded to users' computers when they logged in to Facebook 'inadvertently' sent information to the company, whether or not they were logged in at the time.

Really? Inadvertently? I really don’t think so.

On checking the changes in ‘privacy policy’ made by Facebook on 11^th May 2012, I came across some rather interesting points:

• If you comment on something public, your comment will be public      
• All of the things you do and share on Facebook may be used to target you with ads
• Facebook may retain your data for extended periods if its subject to a legal request or obligation, governmental investigation, or investigations" into violations of Facebook's policies

This is certainly a wakeup call to be cautious about the use of social-networking sites. It's more public than you may think at the time you signed up for the hype. 

It would be wise to remember that the Internet never forgets. I am surely going to be careful while exercising my freedom of speech and expression.

Angry Birds: Part 1 of 2

Once spoken, words can't be taken back.

We see the impact of thoughtlessly used words around us all the time. And we know from observations in our daily lives that when someone is hurt by words, they do not forget them easily.

Social media has provided people an additional platform to express themselves. And while ordinarily, the sense to be careful with your words should have extended to the social media, it does not seem to have.

And what surprises me is that there seems to be a quick punishment for expressing without any forethought or premeditation.

Very recently, I came across this case when a tweet from an Indian landed him in prison!

On 20 October, Ravi Srinivasan posted a tweet to his 16 followers saying that Karti Chidambaram, a politician belonging to India's ruling Congress party and son of Finance Minister P Chidambaram, had "amassed more wealth than Vadra".

Karti Chidambaram did not take the tweet in good humour and filed a police complaint on 29 October.

They arrested Mr Srinivasan early next morning, charged him under Section 66A of India's Information Technology [IT] Act, and demanded 15 days of police custody. Pondicherry's chief judicial magistrate declined remand and granted bail.

That was some quick reaction from the police!

While Rahul Gandhi is not on twitter yet, for all those tweeting, even in jest, about Robert Vadra and the Gandhi family, should really think twice henceforth…:D

This made me look back to a few more episodes caused by the twitterati.

Many people of international repute have been caught in the harsh light of twitter scandals. The types of scandals in which they have been involved, cover a wide range of types. They include nasty comments, intimate photos (mistakenly or otherwise) sent to the public.

The incidents affected the people involved in various ways. Apart from public humiliation, while some have been sued, some threatened with legal action, some have lost lucrative advertising deals simply by virtue of being careless with their words.

Take the case of the recent London Olympics help this year.

Greek triple-jumper Voula Papachristou made history July 25th, 2012 as the first Olympian to ever be banned from the games for a tweet.

She published a racist tweet, stating “So many Africans in Greece. At least, west Nile mosquitos will eat homemade food.”

Within 3 days the Greek Olympic committee issued a statement deeming her social media content “contrary to the values and ideals of the Olympic movement.”

The athlete was officially banned from competing in the upcoming Olympics due to her tasteless tweet. Papachristou even apologized but the 23 year-old athlete has not managed to win any sympathy since her open criticism for her punishment as “highly excessive.”

Michel Morganella, a Swiss soccer player, made an inappropriate statement and described South Koreans as a "bunch of mentally handicapped retards”. It was something he said in the heat of the moment. And though he apologized later, the damage had been done. The Swiss team sent Morganella home.

Morganella was the second athlete of these Games to cost himself a place on his team for his racist and unsportsmanlike tweets.

Stephanie Rice, an Australian swimming star found herself in deep trouble after a remark on Twitter after the Australian football team, the Wallabies, won a game against the Springboks in South Africa.  She called the South African team, ‘f**gots’. This is regarded by many as a term of abuse against homosexuals.

Rice lost a lucrative sponsorship deal with Jaguar. She also had to give up the Jaguar car that she was given by the brand…!

Does it occur to you that there is a steep price to pay for just a few loosely stated words? What we consider as a freedom of expression and our right to voice our opinion, could land us in trouble if we are not careful about just how are thoughts are communicated.

To be continued: