Moderating in tricky territory: refugees, racism and rants
Online community moderation is no longer a luxury, especially when dealing with brands and products with contentious issues at their heart says Quiip’s Alison Michalk in a piece that first appeared in Encore.
The digital world is littered with reputation management failures, where brands have had their pages hijacked and reputations sullied by poorly moderated posts. While it is not always black and white, and there can be myriad factors at play, in the last week alone Qantas and Hyundai have both faced issues in this space with Qantas caught up in controversy over bigoted comments posted on the brand’s Facebook page and Hyundai in damage control after a customer complaint about a service charge went viral.
Neither of these brands could have seen this coming and the only response was a strong moderation policy. But what happens when the heart of your content is a hot button topic that you know will generate fiery and emotional responses? You need to act like a boy scout and be prepared.
There can be no better example than the SBS series Go Back to Where You Came From which followed the journey of refugees in Australia in reverse.
Not sure I’d take advice on avoiding racism from someone who writes “While it is not always black and white…” in the first par.
@MaryMagdalene, I don’t think a pun was intended. The writer was literally trying to illustrate that the situation isn’t always clear-cut. Odd you’d take offence at a saying which implies there are ‘grey’ areas and doesn’t refer to race at all.