DirecTV Joplin fiasco – a dark side of social media

Posted on | June 2, 2011 | 4 Comments

Last night while attending the New Zealand-Mexico soccer match in Denver, I posted some updates to Facebook about the game. I also noticed a friend had posted an update/rant about DirecTV’s treatment of customers in Joplin, Missouri, in the aftermath of the tornadoes that ravaged the town:

“This is ridiculous and Direct TV should be ashamed!
As Joplin victims call Direct TV to cancel their service due to homes completely wiped off the map, they are being told to send in a box or remote control or pay a fine of $500+ to cancel service. DirectTV should be boycotted. Tell their employees to go to these former HOMES and find their remote controls… REPOST!”

I was immediately suspicious – it seems no one could be unaware of the devastation Joplin suffered, after all the heartbreaking pictures and video of practically the entire town ground to splinters. I posted a response to her, in jest, that it sounded like a nasty rumor started by Dish or Comcast. I thought about the possibility that some thick-headed customer service rep may have blindly stuck to the standard disconnect script. I also figured that somewhere along the line – via homeowners insurance, or insurance coverage DirecTV has for this type of situation – some insurance would cover any lost/damaged/destroyed equipment. But the story, at face value, just did not make sense to me on any level.

This morning, I tried to learn more. There was nothing online when doing a search for stories, it seemed. I searched Twitter, and found some folks calling out DirecTV, then went to DirecTV’s Twitter page (http://twitter.com/#!/DIRECTV), where they were posting responses that this was an incorrect rumor. I also found a Facebook protest page, “Boycott Direct TV (sic) for Charging Joplin Customers $500” where the page members are now saying it seems that DirecTV is not doing this. Whether some misguided individual customer service rep bumbled into this mess and an understandably pissed off customer ran with it, or someone just assumed the company would blindly stick to its policy, is unclear.

The situation, though, points to a dark side to social media. No matter what the power of this tool to garner attention and help create change, from keeping companies honest to toppling dictators, the opportunity exists for wildly inaccurate information to quickly spread but outraged but mis-informed, albeit well-intentioned, people.

What do you think? How many examples like this exist for every example of social media driving positive change? What are some of your favorites?

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