Jlbraaten you are absolutely correct in your synopsis. Mommy blogger and Carroll should not be compared. Thank goodness for creative and intelligent people that are willing to stand up for themselives and by doing so, give us all a voice in this world of corporate, nameless, faceless giants.

As great as social media is, it’s also being abused. People and brands alike are all wanting to be the next big hit . We want real-time information, we want accurate information – this is the problem. Everyone wants to be the first to break news and we have this sense of entitlement. That sense of entitlement has carried over to SM where, in an effort to find the next Dominos or United, we use SM as a tool to call people out and complain.

Look around, the ratio of compliments to negative comments is heavily shifted toward negative. We feel the need to broadcast the littlest obstacle and have a “I know people, I’m connected. I’ll show them” attitude.

The problem is, this is a much bigger issue than simply SM. It’s a sign of our society and how our ego has expanded to form a sense of entitlement.

By the way – because I feel like being annoying, I’m posting a retroactive “first!” ;)

Now, Lisa – yes. I agree with what you say about him using this experience to promote himself. I was addressing the question to why so many people supported it – and it’s simply because he apparently had a bigger voice than others – so by supporting him, the voice got even louder. Yeah, he got something out of it personally, and his marketing trick worked. But on the flip side, United has now heard a lot of people who weren’t heard before. Maybe – just maybe – they’ll start to pay attention. Like Daniel up there noted, it’s a way for them to start paying attention better than they ever have before, and a chance to really hear what their customers have to say. There will always be abusers of any system, I prefer to err on the side of the “good” (even though my own years of retail experience know what people are really like LOL)

There are so many parallels the the 2nd amendment here… social media doesn’t destroy reputations. People do (lol).

You can’t just expect people not to voice their disdain for a brand in the social spaces just because there will be a few bad eggs that take advantage of it. Media covers everything, good and bad, and social media is no exception.

I think why I am baffled is because you yourself talk about other people or brands that you perceive as idiotic, how is that any different then what you are advocating against, or is this something you did too, and now this recent situation opened your eyes to what is going on?

I agree with this below comment by Daniel Prager

“I think social media has definitely made it easier for brands to be held accountable for some of their actions, or at the very least has inspired them to have a more genuine and transparent public image.”

I think this is more of a good thing than not.

I also think you can vent about a frustration in general without pin pointing a brand or person.

What you said here: “As a whole, we have gone apeshit crazy with social media. We’ve shown consumers how to turn great tools like blogs, online video and Twitter streams into weapons of mass brand destruction, regardless of whether or not they have a valid complaint.” is completely valid but up to a certain point. From my own personal experience which developed from using social media for the past 4 months, I have seen that social media has a great power to create unity amongst people, way more than any TV news channel, international world peace summit or a single blog are able to bring about.

Racism, violence, ethnic bias, wrong use of any online tool or channel will be there, whether we agree to it or are aware of it or not… Yet, social media has widely opened doors for thinkers, giver, artists, poets, writers and so on, to share their their ideas of love, peace, unity and positive energy across the globe in a way that we have never witnessed before!

Take Paulo Coelho (http://bit.ly/3w5Q1p) for example, see how he uses social media and how he takes advantage of the powerful social media outlets to bring people together!

Another example is @lagresto on Twitter, a life and success coach who has taken his painful experiences in life and twisted them into valuable advice for his tweep followers.

Not long ago, I wrote an article which totally disagrees with your point of view. Call me dreamy, but I think that social media does pave the path for a better more united world! I listed many reasons how it will able to do so… Check it out http://bit.ly/11uRtW

All the best!

People hide behind their wall of protection and think they can go into the social scape and just start yelling at you and putting you down like a bully- thinking that they can get away with it. It’s the equivalent of picking someone out of a crowd you think doesn’t look right, slamming them up against a wall and threatening them or even hurting them. That’s what I felt like when this person harassed me the other day.

I’ll say this, though… I think some people have a tendency to rally behind the person claiming damages, who’s going up against the “big bad corporation”. I think people sometimes do this without looking critically at the situation; it’s enough to know it’s the man against the big company. So I do like your take on how social media can be abused and used unethically in this way. It’s something we definitely have to take note of.