All's Well With Groundswell

Don’t wait! A regime change in the US seems to be  the perfect time to learn about Groundswell. Not only do we see the Groundswell in political moments (thanks Rogue NASA), but businesses have also become caught up in the political groundswell of a new era. In Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s book Groundswell it may astonish you what the groundswell can do! In the first chapters, you realize that you’ve seen and been part of groundswell for years, but the power of it has often been understated. For example, the famous film Snakes on a Plane lost its PG-13 rating just to put one quote in the movie that fans demanded before it hit theaters. When the majority population are adolescent boys (who with the R rating would not necessarily see the movie), you realize just how intense the groundswell is.

One of the things I found most interesting in the first four chapters was understanding the demographics of the groundswell, and what ways they interact with the groundswell. I had never thought of all of the ways that I personally interact with companies, but after reading about creators,conversationalists, collectors, critics, joiners, spectators, and inactives, it made a lot of sense. It got me thinking about why certain companies become prone to certain groundswell actions.

One groundswell action that currently got me thinking was Uber versus its joiners. Uber is a taxi service that allows people to drive on their own time, and gives riders options about the way they ride (carpool, XL car, nicer car, etc.). They have been one of the most popular ride services, Uber has pretty much always been well supported and prosperous. That is until the CEO of Uber Travis Kalanick agreed to be part of Donald Trump’s Business Advisory Council. Oh, and while Taxis were on strike for an hour while anti travel ban protests happened at the JFK airport, Uber agreed to take anyone, free of surge prices. What Kalanick saw as a move to help Trump with his labor plans, the public saw as a direct support of Donald Trump. This, in turn, led to a country wide boycott and 200,000

people deleting their Uber apps in just a couple of

days. If you’ve read groundswell, I bet

you can guess where this is going. Yes, Kalanick pulled

out of Trump’s Business Council because it was so bad for his own business.

No matter what side of this story you are on, you gotta admit it, the groundswell is impressive. Uber seems to have understood that they must recognize and cater to their customers. For Uber, this means even though they have very little ability to attract creators, collectors, or other more involved customers, their joiners can still have a say in their decisions. Interestingly enough, Li and Bernoff may have seen this coming. According to them, Democrat leaning people are more likely to interact with companies in every way more than Republican leaning people so, the odds for Uber was not in their favor. Beyond that, young people are more likely to be involved in every aspect of groundswell as well. As young people are more likely to lean democrat, Uber has a double whammy against them when it comes to openly supporting a conservative republican president. Whether it’s right or wrong, it looks like Uber could have thought a little more about how Kalanick’s choices would affect the support of their young, democratic customers.

Censorship on Facebook

Let’s talk about free speech. It seems like a simple concept, right? The United States constitution essentially states that Americans are allowed to speak freely. However, in no way does this demand that companies allow you to do the same on their sites, or in their establishments. It also does not mean that hateful speech does not have repercussions, even in the context of United States law.

But what does this have to do with social media exactly? The main problem: internet trolls.

One of the internet’s oldest and most bothersome groups of people. There are many people who may not have the confidence to something mean to someone’s face, but are willing to pester and make fun of them online at whim.

Many people who have been victims of these terrible internet interactions would claim that they are not trolls, but harassers. People who again do not have the guts to say something to someone’s face, or can’t, yet find comfort in making degrading and destructive comments on social media that have the potential to truly harm a person, business, or organization. Now, pretty much all social media sites have chosen to create “community standards” that when broken, can be silenced by the social media site. Some would argue that this is a violation of free speech, but many others say that Facebook and sites like it have the right to cultivate the values of their site.

How does Facebook do this? You ask. Well, you probably didn’t, but let’s get into it anyway. Facebook uses its people. If someone sees something that they feel goes against Facebook’s community guidelines, it can be reported. And if it’s reported, it is most often taken off immediately. This process is explained here on C-net. In theory this process makes a lot of sense. However, censorship being at the whim of other people who could be reporting content for reasons beyond the Facebook Community Guidelines has led to uproar when Facebook allows content to be taken down. This practice is the new wave of “trolling”, especially in an increasingly divided America.

Recently, this topic of harassment and censorship has gone a step further. According to Forbes’ article “Facebook Should do More to Address Censorship and Harassment Issues, Rights Groups Say” (bit of a long title, no?) eighty rights groups have signed a letter to Facebook asking for censorship reform on its site. The letter demands that “Facebook provide a simple and accessible appeals process, increase transparency around content removal and carry out an external audit to review the human rights outcomes of its censorship, stating that the company’s current audits aren’t ‘sufficiently independent’”. These groups feel that activist content especially has been subject to trolls reporting content that they disagree with, not that goes against Facebook’s Community Guidelines.

Beyond that, that Facebook has willingly responded to these reports by removing the content without transparency to the groups being reported, or giving the option to appeal content being taken off. The group argues that these censorship practices have disproportionately affected people of color. They have found many instances of racist Facebook members reporting content simply because of it’s relation to “Black Lives Matter” and other activist initiatives.

Content on Facebook should absolutely have the opportunity to be reported, especially when the aspect of harassment is involved. However, should content really be taken off just because it does not follow another person’s opinions? I and many others think not. What do we do with the new era of censorship trolls? I think that this will be a highly debated issue in the coming years with the current U.S political regime who has already done their own trolling of censoring non- harassment based social media (ahem EPA).