Poor decisions in Social Media can have serious consequences
Posted by Darren Enta on Thu, Mar 24, 2011
On Friday March 11th a UCLA student named Alexandra Wallace posted a video blog espousing her thoughts on her Asian counterparts that attended UCLA. Initially this appeared to be just another case of poor decision making. Like the ones that 
were made by Celebrity spokesperson/Comedian Gillbert Gottfried and another poor decision maker from New Media Strategies hired by Chrysler. In the cases of Gottfried and Chrysler both incidents had repercussions. Gottfried had made some insensitive statements about the Tsunami in Japan on Twitter. Gottfried forced Aflac insurance to make a very serious decision, since Japan accounts for 75 percent of Aflac’s revenue. That decision turned out to be his termination, an Aflac spokesperson announced three days later. In another case an employee of New Media Strategies posted a comment on Twitter using Chrysler’s official account that was offensive to the residents of Detroit, the home of Chrysler. Chrysler announced the day after the incident that it would not re-new the contract of New Media Strategies and the company chief executive offered his “regrets for this unfortunate incident” and informed the media that the employee who posted the comment was dismissed from his position.
Back to Ms. Wallace, what’s not clear in her situation are what repercussions she will face. It is slightly alarming that this person is a political science major in her third year at UCLA. Is it possible she didn’t understand the gravity of her statements? Was that part covered in her introduction of “we all know I’m not the most politically correct person. So don’t take this offensively” right before she launched into an ignorant and stereotypical laden rant about “Asians”. The chancellor of the University had to be involved and even his Facebook page was the subject of additional attention. At the time of this blog, no disciplinary action has been taken against Ms. Wallace.
Could it have been the influence of recent celebrity “breakdowns” that inspired her? Why and how Ms. Wallace’s video became such a hot topic is a valid question. This video solicited millions of views and sparked several rebuttals and parodies. It was all those that chose to watch the video, re-post it and add new updated versions of the video that maintained the attention to ensure that this incident received the level of exposure it did. While the videos that followed hers have been both entertaining and somewhat educational they also provide an example of user backlash. Imagine if Ms. Wallace was in fact a celebrity or a brands spokesperson, what economic impact would such statements have?
Most of the content in retort to Ms. Wallace was done out of emotion and anger, there were a few that displayed genuine talent, forethought and excellent comedic timing. The Wallace video is offensive, ignorant and appears to be a poor attempt at obtaining some form of celebrity, but is protected by the 1st amendment in the United States. What the video was able to do was provide a teachable moment. No one knows what motivated Ms. Wallace. What was somewhat encouraging was the ratio of videos condemning this in comparison to any videos of support.
The final laugh appears to be on Ms. Wallace as a group has “adopted” her now infamous “Ching Chong..” line from her video and re-purposed the offensive statement. A group has launched a company which is selling T-shirts emboldened with Ms. Wallace’s now infamous line and donating the profits to the relief efforts in Japan. The lesson those of us without such polarizing views, what you may think sounds insightful and intelligent in your mind is not necessarily going to be interpreted that way once you put it out into the world. For those that are responsible for maintaining the image of a brand or a company instituting a policy that will protect against these poor decisions and establishing monitoring guidelines may be a SMART idea.