Fighting Back
Posted by SinnyoAug 7
Time and again we’re led to believe that corporations rule cyberspace and people, and that their downfall is the only thing which could bring about a new, enlightened age – with technology its medium. A recent discussion on British national radio has offered a new take on this idea though, as the likes of Dick, Gibson and Stephenson apparently missed a trick.
This discussion, held on Jeremy Vine’s BBC Radio 2 show, explored how reputations are slandered as a result of actions on a computer; it was sparked by stories of computer-illiterate people having pornography placed on their hard drives. What became clear was that this is a remarkably easy thing to do, and it doesn’t just take place on hard drives, as the above country music video demonstrates.
There are stories of a regional water company (left anonymous through BBC impartiality) whose Google search listing was overtaken by one man’s angry rant at them. His site, simply named “I Hate..” and the water company’s name, came into being after a tile was dislodged from his roof by that company’s engineers, working on repairs nearby. He demanded that they pay for the damage, they refused, and their online search listings took a blow as a result.
"United Breaks Guitars" t-shirt
Companies have had their reputations battered on platforms like YouTube too, such as United Airlines, who incurred Son of Maxwell’s wrath when their prized guitars were broken right outside their aeroplane window. I understand from the Radio 2 show that United and the aforementioned water company saw their share prices drop soon after these protests were released. The YouTube video also stands at just shy of 9 million views at the time of writing – that’s a lot of people being delivered a memorable testimony of bad airline service.
Of course it’s not all innocent out there – YouTube itself is owned by Google, and they’re often stuck trying to dodge anti-corporate feelings from the internet populace. There is also an argument for ‘any publicity is good publicity’, with CBS News claiming that United Airlines reacted positively to the United Breaks Guitars phenomenon. Certainly no company has, to my knowledge, been brought down by viral internet campaigns – but perhaps it’s only a matter of time. Who’d have thought online PR would be just as important as keeping hacker-proof firewalls?
3 comments
Comment by Stabs on August 8, 2010 at 8:37 AM
So far viral campaigns have been a source of enormous profit for corporations. This is a Time list of the top ten from a couple of years ago:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article2138718.ece
It clearly shows that professional advertisers are leading the way.
I would also claim that Farmville is the veneer of a game stretched over a viral campaign.
I think far from viral campaigns being a tool of the oppressed to take down The Man they have become a tool of corporates to extract more profits from us.
I suppose the closest example to a successful anti-corporate viral campaign has been the opposition to Blizzard’s RealID scheme. Conspiracy theorists are of course already insisting that our victory there was all part of Kotick’s evil masterplan.
Comment by Sinnyo on August 8, 2010 at 3:02 PM
That is true, and I fear that the cyberpunk tactic of using the corporation’s own tools against them falls a bit flat in reality when we look at viral media in that way. I struggle a little with them, though – viral advertising, when intended for positive publicity, inevitably loses a message somewhere. ‘Indie viral’ can work better since its message is a lot clearer. Tough thing to measure though.
Comment by Dblade on August 13, 2010 at 2:21 PM
In cyberpunk though the corporations had governmental power, and government was weak and ineffective. Things like corporate security and assasinations were plot points. I think it was because cyberpunk was born during the time when Japanese corporations were ascendant, and writers took them as a model and expanded it into dystopian levels.
The real life thing, well a lot of it is more lifestyle and class warfare than any evil the corporations do. I don’t see it as a reaction against actual corporate malfeasance as much as a war to bring sort of an utopian ideal society. That’s why it doesn’t stick. I mean its not like adbusters isn’t trying.