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Articles from PEARL JEWELLERY (356 Articles), PEARLS - LOOSE FRESHWATER (38 Articles), PEARLS - LOOSE / TEMPORARILY STRUNG (36 Articles)
Paspaley's Facebook Page has attracted angry consumers after the Four Corners report.
Backlash to Paspaley silencing social media critics
 5.6 k views | Posted July 17, 2012 |
Pearl jewellery brand Paspaley has come under fire for its response to
negative feedback posted on its Facebook page in the wake of the damning
Four Corners report last week.
A report broadcast by ABC current affairs program Four Corners last Monday alleged that there were lax safety standards in Paspaley’s pearl farming processes, which were a contributing factor to the death of pearl diver Jarrod Hampton.
The harrowing story inspired many viewers to take to Twitter and Facebook to express their sadness about Hampton’s fate and vent their rage at Paspaley.
The official Paspaley Facebook page registered heavy traffic, receiving dozens of critical comments, which were quickly deleted by the company. It was a move that only seemed to exacerbate Paspaley’s predicament, with Facebook and Twitter users criticising its response as an irresponsible brush over.
“Cheers for deleting my comment last night, as you did for the 30 other comments that were on this page,” one Facebook user wrote. “Good to see the way you handle criticism is to completely wipe it from the eyes of the public. Your levels of respect are plummeting.”
Another user expressed their frustration with Paspaley’s deletions, posting “seems you cannot make any comment about this issue without Paspaley deleting it.”
The social media blunder was reported by popular marketing blog Mumbrella, and later by the Australian Financial Review. Paspaley responded to the social media disapproval by claiming some of the deletions were accidental.
“We thank you for your comments and we genuinely share your sympathies,” Paspaley posted on its Facebook page. “We removed what we believed to be insensitive and/or abusive comments in response to the Four Corners program. We apologise to those whose comments were inadvertently deleted in this process. Until the authorities complete their investigation, we are unable to publicly comment on the specifics of this tragedy or its relationship with the industry’s safety measures.”
In the June ‘digital’ issue, Jeweller highlighted deleting negative feedback from official pages as a definite ‘Don’t’ when managing a brand’s social media. American social media consultant Kerry Rego also advised companies to avoid silencing critics where possible.
“I recommend deleting and removing posts from others if they are: racist, sexist, full of hate speech, obscene or violate your stated community guidelines,” she wrote in a blog post. “Deleting simply because you don’t like them shows immaturity, an inability to deal with real life situations, and damages your credibility. No matter how much you try to whitewash life, you can’t remove all negativity from your world.”
Gemma Tognini, director of corporate communications firm gtmedia, told the Australian Financial Review that Paspaley definitely made the wrong move in removing initial negative comments.
“Social media is about the conversation,” she said. “When you invite the conversation, you have to take the good with the bad.”
Since the initial raft of deletions and ensuing backlash, Paspaley has left its Facebook page open to critical comments. At the time of publication, there were over 140 comments on the page related to the pearl diver death, most of them negative.
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