{
  "path": "/posts/tumblr-musings/twitter-as-a-weapon",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ephkzpinhaqcabtkugtbzrwu/site.standard.publication/3mdogbputbg2m",
  "tags": [
    "news",
    "twitter",
    "customer-service",
    "from-tumblr"
  ],
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "title": "Thoughts on Twitter as a Weapon",
  "description": "A short thought-piece on reports of a person paying to promote their complaint tweet.",
  "publishedAt": "2013-09-04T08:34:00.000Z",
  "textContent": "My brother just showed me to \"an interesting news story\" - it really is.\n\nMr. Syed won't be the first person to use advertising space to get eyeballs on a private grievance (though you can argue this one has public appeal too), but before the dawn of promoted messages on social media this method of being heard cost _serious_ money; I think the decreasing cost and general availability of releasing weighty negative advertisements is a serious potential problem.\n\n!An illustration of an angry blue bird punching with UFC gloves\n\nThe parallel Ms Wakefield draws with David & Goliath in her article is apt - Goliath isn't tech-savvy enough to use a targeted weapon like David and the damage is done before Goliath gets a chance to respond. My concern arises when I imagine a world where self-righteous Davids attack Goliaths in preference to more amiable methods of solving the problem; Goliaths will find this very difficult to defend against, as every person - David or otherwise - who they raise a shield at is a potential customer seeing a less compelling service.\n\nMr. Syed tells the BBC that he turned to promoted tweets after being frustrated at the lack of a suitable response from the usual complaint channels, this I applaud. It's clever, targeted and doesn't appear (too?) vindictive (we've all been down the poor customer service route with a Goliath before) so here's to hoping we, as Davids with a newly publicised anti-Goliath weapon, can keep ourselves from becoming too aggressive.",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://www.byjp.me/posts/tumblr-musings/twitter-as-a-weapon"
}