This is the last thing that I wanted to say, or do…
For me, there’s no place like Twitter. There’s the engagement and the ability to follow trends. The platform also offers the simplest way to interact with others. It’s not as showy as Instagram, or a place for the folks like Facebook. While my wife will love me saying this, but I think I’ve had enough of the bird. The reasoning is simple. I don’t like where the company is headed under its new owner, Elon Musk. From how he’s treated Twitter’s staff, to an out-in-the-open bias for views and social media accounts that I find abhorrent (from antisemitism to transphobia, fascism and xenophobia), my head tells me to get the heck off of Twitter. I want to be on social media for discussion and debate, but also for civility and a purpose that goes beyond hating another group of people. The last straw for me was targeting/banning public servants and journalists who don’t share the Twitter CEO’s worldview (I only wish I could give my Model Y car back).
My family will be happy to read this (less social media scrolling), but I’ll be sticking to LinkedIn for now and exploring new online places that don’t require me to put on a headset and lose my legs. I’ll be leaving my Twitter account dormant, in the naïve hope that Twitter takes a different, more inclusive direction. Otherwise, I’ll be staying off the site. I don’t want to see that level of toxicity, and I feel that we’ve given Elon Musk enough of our attention and time (I certainly don’t want him to make money off of my presence and activity on Twitter, given what he’s doing to the platform). Right, enough of this post and here’s to less social media and more real world stuff. I’m off to do some gardening with the wife!
While Elon Musk may joke about Twitter’s potential demise, many of the company’s crises are being caused by its new owner
Mass firings and resignations, the loss of millions in advertising revenues, and arguments between employees and the new owner playing out in public; Elon Musk only bought Twitter less than a month ago, but both have been living in a constant state of crisis since then.
From the beginning the signs were not good. Elon Musk disbanded Tesla’s communications function in 2020. And yet, despite the need to clearly spell out his vision to the workforce, the new CEO canned Twitter’s communications function shortly after taking over.
What was left was a vacuum of information. Employees were left waiting to listen to Elon Musk (introductory town halls were both arranged and cancelled at short notice), and had to turn to Twitter or the media to know what was the vision of their new CEO and learn about what actions he was taking.
Rather than listening to his employees, Musk would often make grand statements on what was or wasn’t working at Twitter via his own Twitter account. Rather than taking in feedback from Twitter’s engineers who would try to correct him, Elon fired those who disagreed with him (both in public and on the company’s internal communication channels).
Elon Musk clearly believes that he can transform Twitter’s famously open culture to one that resembles Tesla or SpaceX. His Twitter employees clearly disagree. For those that remained after the first couple of firing rounds, the last straw seems to have been his Twitter 2.0 message, in which he told the remaining employees they had to work harder and longer hours.
The message has spurred mass resignations, including of key functions such as payroll and product safety. Media reports claim that Twitter’s remaining management are desperate to keep those engineers who are vital to maintaining the site at the company.
In many ways, the damage to morale is arguably irreversible. To quote one Twitter employee who spoke to the BBC, “I didn’t want to work for someone who threatened us over email multiple times about only ‘exceptional tweeps should work here’ when I was already working 60-70 hours weekly.”
For Musk, the question remains. Will he change how he manages Twitter and its people, before the platform collapses? Or will we continue to watch this crisis play out in real time, on the site?
What we have seen over the past couple of weeks is a clash of cultures (and communication styles). Twitter’s employees are passionate about what they do, they are committed to the platform, and they’ve always been open about their views. Take away the company culture, and you have little left. The company’s headcount is down from over seven thousand to about two thousand. We may be reaching a point where there’s not enough people to maintain the platform. And none of this was inevitable (well, at least not in the space of a month).
Whether Musk can turn this around is still up for debate. But the past couple of weeks will become a case study in self-inflicted crises. Elon Musk couldn’t or wouldn’t listen to staff, he didn’t communicate internally, he limited much of his interactions to a small group of people, and he wasn’t able to understand Twitter’s culture. His decisions and communication style grated with employees, meaning he effectively lost their support from the get-go. And the less said about his product decisions, the better. My thoughts are very much with the employees who kept Twitter going. They deserved better than this.
Clubhouse was fun for us in the UAE, at least for a couple of weeks
The buzz came and went faster than you can say ‘two-shot vaccination’. Clubhouse has been the invite-only app that everyone has been talking about, at least iPhone users (the application isn’t available on Android phones, yet). The app, which is audio-based and is designed around the idea of creating rooms where people can listen in to speakers in a talk-radio format (think a live stream but with no video), has proved to be wildly popular in the Gulf.
I’ve loved the application, and the ability to listen in and engage in talks and debates, both scheduled and on the fly. You can find rooms by interest, follow friends and colleagues, and be as involved or as uninvolved as you want. There are talks about current affairs, social issues, and even silence (which is very handy if you’re living in Cairo). And there were also a myriad of PR possibilities for the platform, which made it so exciting.
Sadly for me and all my friends in the UAE, you won’t be able to use Clubhouse. The service has been throttled to the point that the audio is, frankly, inaudible. Have a listen to the below (and Omar is on a 5G connection, which is going to be faster than my wifi).
This is what @joinClubhouse sounds like in the UAE. The cruel machinations of traffic shaping are back
I don’t know the reasons why this is happening. I assume it’s due to the UAE’s VoIP laws, which requires any application that uses voice over the internet to be regulated (in theory, you can call another individual via Clubhouse, but that’s not really the purpose of the application). Have the country’s networks deemed that Clubhouse is an application whose performance should be reduced to the point that it’s unusable? The only way that the application can be used is via a VPN, which is also not ideal.
It’s a shame that this is happening; Clubhouse looked to be such a fun place to hear others and hold group chats. And it doesn’t help the region in its goal to become a technology leader. But anyone who has lived here for a while knows how these things are (we can’t use Facebook messenger calling, for example). Ah well, anyone up for another WhatsApp group chat?
Far too many organizations don’t empower their employees to speak freely, which is a mistake
A story from America back in November shocked me; it wasn’t about the elections, thank goodness, but rather about an employee of a paint brand who’d been fired after using social media “inappropriately”. Tony Piloseno had built up a following of over 1.2 million accounts on TikTok. His forte was mixing paint. Apparently, his then employer didn’t like that he was doing this on company time whilst using their paints (which he’d paid for) and let him do on the basis of “gross misconduct”.
I shouldn’t have been shocked. I know companies in the Middle East that force their employees to not just refrain from using social media during work hours, but have actually insisted on their employees deleting their social media accounts for fear of what they may say online.
This thinking has always puzzled me, for two reasons. The first is people will always talk, and no organization can stop their employees from sharing their experiences, both good and bad, verbally. Plus it’s easier than ever for people to leave anonymous feedback online (I do wonder how many employer branding people in the region review what employees say about their organizations on sites such as Glassdoor).
Even more importantly, your employees are your best brand ambassadors. Their views and feelings are the living embodiment of everything that is positive and negative about the organization. They’ll speak up with enthusiasm when they’re proud of what the organization is doing, and they’ll increasingly share their views on organizational issues that concern them. And the younger your workforce, the more likely they’ll be speaking about what is going on within your four walls, on open, indexed sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn or on apps such as TikTok.
To me, there’s nothing better and more influential than an employee who is online and who is openly showing their pride in their company because they believe in the company’s vision and actions. They’re brand ambassadors and advocates, who are able to use their passion to influence others, be they potential employees, partners or customers. The better the organization in terms of its policies and actions, employee engagement and care, the more likely you’re going to see employees talking positively about their employers.
Simply by listening to employees online, I can see how well an organization performs in terms of how it treats its workforce, how ethically it does business, and how much it supports societal development. I’ll be able to make a judgement call on whether I’d like to work for that organization from hearing authentic employee sentiment online; this will sway me and countless others much more than a pretty press release, or an executive’s speech filled full of superlatives.
I do hope that more managers in the region grasp this reality, and let their employees voice their views online without fear of retribution. Tony Piloseno has found one such person at his new employer. When asked why he’d hired Tony, Florida Paints co-founder Don Strube said that, “the hard part about paint is finding people who see paint as exciting—and Tony does. Color is what makes the world look great, and Tony was making paint amazing.”
More and more people are feeling the need to self-censor. And it’s not a good sign of where we are headed as a region (image source: Pinterest)
It’s been a funny couple of days (I know, it’s 2020). Over the past week, I’ve had two people reach out to me, basically telling me to be careful of what I post. The first was for a piece I wrote mentioning another place and its work on promoting education across the world (which I hope all of us would support). The second was a post mentioning a piece of bread and how much it cost (I’m serious). It goes without saying, more and more of us are self-censoring. And on every issue out there. And that worries me.
Why are they doing it? Partly due to politics, to laws, and to the overall cultural climate around us. We live in an increasingly divided world, where many believe that their viewpoint is the only one that matters. And increasingly, these people are in positions of power. Given the potential reach of social media, where one person can engage with millions, far too many believe that we should only write and share things that agree with them. Ironically, those that break the law whilst agreeing with those in power are not punished. And laws are used to hold others to account for the flimsiest of reasons.
Not knowing where the line is any more, people are remaining silent. Or they’re saying things they don’t believe it. That makes my job as a communicator much harder, as I don’t know if what I’m hearing is true or not. And even if my engagement online is making a difference, how would I know this if people aren’t saying or writing what they feel?
The issue is bigger than this. My belief is that, given enough time and reinforcement, self-censorship extends to our behavior in a number of settings, including our workplaces. We’re less likely to speak up with a new idea, to point out when something isn’t working, or when someone does something wrong. Freedom matters, for our personal lives and for our economies too. I will leave the last word to the American economist Milton Friedman, who was writing about the US, but could have been talking about any place on earth:
I know of no example in time or place of a society that has been marked by a large measure of political freedom, and that has not also used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of economic activity
A lack of trust in what the government is saying leads to panic, fear, and citizens taking action into their own hands
This is the biggest crisis all of us have ever dealt with. The pandemic has impacted every major country, both directly and indirectly. It’s brought whole industries down. And, worst of all, tens of thousands of people have lost their lives. And it’s going to get worse.
The hope is that we can all take action to flatten the curve and reduce the number of infections to a level that our healthcare systems can deal with. And this isn’t just a possibility. Countries such as Singapore and South Korea have shown that the right approach can be found to get us through this in the best shape possible, with fewer infections.
Government communications is key here. I’ve seen some brilliant work, and I’ve seen work which isn’t going to achieve anything other than the opposite of what was intended. Here’s what I hope governments will look at doing right now.
A Single Source of Information
This isn’t just a viral pandemic. We’re seeing fake news spread at an unprecedented rate. Given how many government departments are involved in a crisis response (think health, education, business, finance, legal, customs, transportation, basically everyone), the potential for the message not to be seen is high. Each government department has its own website, its own comms channels, and team.
What a crisis like this requires is a single source of information, especially online. This location needs to take the lead in pushing out any and all information on the virus and its impact, including for individuals and organizations on everything. What others must then do is aggregate information from that website. By doing this, you get people to understand where they should go, not only to source information but to also corroborate what they’ve been told.
One example of a single source is Weqaya.ae, a website set up by the UAE government to educate people on health-related issues. This website is a start (and I haven’t checked out how it looks on mobile, and if the website is responsive in terms of design), but there’s another issue that governments need to tackle, and that’s language.
Multiple Languages
It’s pretty obvious, but I’m yet to see governments in my region push out information in multiple languages. And I’m assuming it’s the same in many other places. Now more than ever, communicators need to understand their audiences, and push out content in as many languages as possible (this is why diversity and inclusion matters when it comes to comms, which many of us seem to have forgotten). Write a piece in multiple languages, translate infographics, and if you can’t dub over a video, use subtitles. In the Gulf, the languages to look at include Tagalog, Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Bahasa… If the linguistic group is large enough, bring in people who know the language to translate, and then push out the content through that single source website and via…
The Use of Influencers
This crisis has been a missed opportunity when it comes to using third parties to get the message out. And I’m not just referring to people with blue ticks or big followings. An influencer right now could include a foreign embassy, an ambassador, or any person or account that’s trusted by a specific group of people. These individuals have mass appeal, they’re trusted, and they post consistently. My feeling is that governments are behind brands when it comes to using influencers (and I’ll say that many social media influencers haven’t helped themselves by being tone deaf to the situation).
Finland has enlisted social influencers in the government’s efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that they are just as useful as mainstream media in a crisis when it needs to inform the population fast, clearly and accurately.
“We can reach a large part of the public in Finland through official communications and traditional media, but it’s clear the authorities’ messaging doesn’t always reach all population groups,” the government communications director, Päivi Anttikoski, said.
“The aim of this cooperation is to provide better access to information for those who are difficult to reach through traditional channels. As far as we know, Finland is the only country in the world to have defined social media as ‘critical operators’,” – along with doctors, bus drivers and supermarket workers.
Adapt Social Media
Governments have to innovate when it comes to crisis communications. They’ve got to create new channels based on usage and popularity. Oman set up a new Twitter account sharing all official news on what’s happening in the country. The account was set up this month, but it already has 65k followers, and is tweeting in multiple languages.
🇵🇭 Ang pahayag ng Joint Military-Security Media Committee hinggil sa hakbang na ipinatupad sa pamamagitan ng pinagsanib na pagkontrol sa seguridad at daloy trapiko sa bawat governorates ng Sultanate#COVID19#عمان_تواجه_كوروناpic.twitter.com/LtwmkP37uG
What the WHO has done with Whatsapp is smart. This channel is used globally, and it’s a simple and effective way of getting out information effectively via a chatbot. It’s also the place where most misinformation spreads (and we have no way of monitoring what is being shared here due to end-to-end encryption). Have a look at the launch of the service, and please do load it into your Whatsapp.
Transparency and Expertise Matters(Especially for Leaders)
My friend Julio Romo wrote a brilliant read on what Singapore is doing to combat the Coronavirus. Given that the state has come through this better than anyone else, their government communications should be studied widely. One aspect of what they’re doing is promoting clear information as to what is happening on the ground, and tell residents what actions they need to take. Their leaders have been using social media and traditional media effectively, to push out a clear message on what is happening, the actions the government is taking to make things better, and what the public can do to help.
And third, look to who is delivering your message. Doctors and scientists have emerged as the best communicators right now, because they understand the subject better than anyone. Look to Dr Anthony Fauci, who has become a household name in the US thanks to his clear, no-nonsense advice. Their understanding of the issue is reassuring. I’d like to see more scientists being given the opportunity to speak and guide the public (have a look at this WEF article about scientists and communications).
Avoid Conjecture
My last piece of advice is avoid making comments in the heat of the moment, especially on social media. I’ve seen so many government communicators in the Middle East mouth off on Twitter, making statements about the impact of the virus on the economy only for these statements to become nonsense a couple of days later. I’ve seen others talk about how well residents have been treated, only to have the country close its borders a couple of hours later. To paraphrase, trust takes time to build, and disappear in an instant. Do what you can to engage, to educate, and to listen as well (we don’t talk about listening enough in communications).
That’s the short of it for me – let me know what you’d add, and let’s start communicating better. What we do matters now more than ever, to keep people safe and save lives. We have been given an opportunity to make a difference for the better, so let’s take it.
I’m going to say from the outset that everyone makes mistakes. And I also have considerable respect for work the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), the largest broadcaster in the Middle East, has produced (Ahmed Al Shugairi’s Khawatir is the most inspiring program ever aired on Arabic-language television). But what I saw on MBC’s social media channel yesterday horrified me. Before I describe the scene for non-Arabic speakers, I’m going to share the video below.
The video was shared on MBC’s social media account on the evening of the 30th September. It’s effectively a promo for their new series of Arabs Got Talent. Someone wanted to create a video, and they thought it’d be a good idea to depict a would-be suicide bomber on stage, and choosing life instead of destruction.
The dialogue basically conveys the person on stage saying, after he’s opened up his shirt to show the explosive belt, that, “they trained me to blow you all up, but I’ve chosen life and Allah. Can I now sing.” He’s asked by the presenters what he’s doing, and then asked to sing.
There are so many better ways to fight extremism. And there are so many better ways to promote a show (and this is a promo, for anyone who is asking). Given the issues the Middle East faces when it comes to how it is perceived abroad, as well as Islam, who thought this was a good idea? And why did the presenters go along with the idea?
Let’s stop with the stereotyping BS. Extremism is a serious issue, and it should be handled as such, rather than as a prop for a publicity stunt. I’m happy that MBC has taken this down, and I hope that there’ll be discussions internally as to how to better handle such a serious subject, especially by a program which is watched by millions.
Nada’s attempt to mix politics with branding have backfired
I’ve spoken previously about the issue of purpose marketing in the Middle East (mainly the lack of any local brand engagement on big issues such as gender equality and sustainability). One popped into my timelines this week. Sadly, it’s an example that will be long remembered for what went wrong, rather than right.
Nada Dairy is one of the largest manufacturers of dairy products in the Gulf. The company decided to create a video in the run up to Saudi National Day this week. The video attempts to draw a line between the Kingdom’s new cultural policies, and those which were promoted several years ago (this is putting it crudely). The video depicts traditional views as backwards.
The issue with this political stance is that you’re clearly alienating a significant number of consumers. The Kingdom isn’t a democracy, but consumers are free to choose whichever brands they want. And this video has demonstrably hurt Nada’s reputation. Boycotts of its products have been trending on Twitter all this week, and the news has even led to boycott calls in Kuwait.
Nada’s response was to “apologize” for the video (which has been pulled from its feeds). The company also states that it recognizes and respects all views. The statement (which is the first image in this post) may not be the end of the issue, given the strength of the online responses. What is clear is marketers must think long and hard as to what positions they take on societal issues and causes, if they want to both be a supporter of societal change as well as a company that builds a loyal consumer following. If Nada’s management believed in these principles, then the brand has to stick with them. No one will believe in a brand that flip-flops on a societal stance.
I’ve been closely following what’s been happening in Hong Kong. What interests me is how all sides are communicating, how they’re using social media, and also where the industry stands on a big issue such as democracy and transparency.
I reached out to Arun Sudhaman, the CEO of the Holmes Report. Arun is both based in Hong Kong and is one of the leading journalists for the public relations industry worldwide. Here’s our talk on what’s happening in Hong Kong, the impact of social media today, how communicators are struggling with their values and what’s being asked of them, and why purpose is such a hard issue to get right.
Enjoy the conversation, follow Arun’s work on the Holmes Report, and share your thoughts!
Social media trolling is big business in the Philippines. And that business is about to go global (image source: When in Manila)
If there’s one article you should read today, it’s this piece in the Washington Post by Shibani Mahtani and Regine Cabato. Titled “Why crafty Internet trolls in the Philippines may be coming to a website near you”, the article explains what has happened over the past couple of years in the Philippines in relation to the business of social media troll farms.
If you’re not familiar with the idea, I’ll explain. A troll farm is described as an organization whose employees or members attempt to create conflict and disruption in an online community by posting deliberately inflammatory or provocative comments. Traditionally, troll farms were state-led/sponsored (think Russia in the 2016 US elections). This has also happened in other countries. In the article by Mahtani and Cabato, they describe the rise of social media manipulation as an extension of Filipino politics (another great article to read is here, from Buzzfeed’s Davey Alba).
As I’ve mentioned, the concept of social media manipulation isn’t new. We’ve had countless reports into what state actors such as Russia, Iran and others have tried to do online, through mass social media manipulation. What’s fascinating about the Washington Post article is how the Philippines is redefining this concept and turning it into an industry (there’s now both negative and positive trolling), how those who provide the troll farm services are now looking not just to politics but to business as well, and, most worryingly for everyone who works in our industry, is how PR firms are quietly offering the service to their clientele.
It doesn’t surprise me that the Philippines is leading the way in the area of troll farming. The country has a young, English-speaking population, a large service industry, and a tough economy. And Facebook is everywhere, controlling what people read and think when it comes to news, politics and business. To quote from Buzzfeed’s Davey Alba:
If you want to know what happens to a country that has opened itself entirely to Facebook, look to the Philippines. What happened there — what continues to happen there — is both an origin story for the weaponization of social media and a peek at its dystopian future. It’s a society where, increasingly, the truth no longer matters, propaganda is ubiquitous, and lives are wrecked and people die as a result — half a world away from the Silicon Valley engineers who’d promised to connect their world.
Facebook launched “Free Facebook” in the Philippines in 2013. The idea was to partner with a local carrier to offer a portal of free, basic internet services (Free Basics) that would fuel Facebook’s aggressive global expansion. To Zuckerberg, at least, the experiment was successful. “What we’ve seen in the Philippines is … a home run,” he said in a speech at a 2014 conference in Barcelona. Last November, Facebook partnered with the Duterte government to build an undersea cable system that would connect Philippine internet systems to the rest of Asia and the US.
In 2012, 29 million Filipinos used Facebook. Today, 69 million people — two-thirds of the population — are on Facebook. The remaining one-third does not have access to the internet. In other words, virtually every Filipino citizen with an internet connection has a Facebook account. For many in one of the most persistently poor nations in the world, Facebook is the only way to access the internet.
Social media trolling took off in the Philippines during the 2016 Presidential campaign. And many saw the business opportunity. Washington Post spoke to one PR executive who claims his agency is paid anywhere from about $38,000 to $57,000 — “depending on their needs” — on a month-long retainer for up to eight months.
Others are seeing the possibilities too. The authors of the Washington Post article claimed that “several paid troll farm operations and one self-described influencer say they have been approached and contracted by international clients, including from Britain, to do political work. Others are planning to expand overseas, hoping to start regionally”. One opinion quoted in the story claims that social media trolling in the country is a billion dollar business.
There’s no doubt in my mind that social media trolling will have an impact not just on politics in every democracy around the world (if it hasn’t already), but that these services will be turned towards business, especially the notion of positive trolling, of using fake accounts to talk up a business and their activities. I am also in no doubt that Facebook and the other internet giants will do nothing to stop this (Facebook’s efforts to stop what’s going on in the Philippines have been derisory at best).
So, what can we do as PR practitioners? There’s not that many options on the table. The most obvious one is to both act ethically, and speak up publicly about why ethics matters. We’re not vocal enough about this issue, and we need to change that. Another way to push back is to be more vocal about what we want the tech firms to do. We’ve got to stop treating the likes of Facebook and Google as champions of public relations, and rather as companies who are not doing enough to fight for and on behalf of our publics online.
If you have any ideas on the above, please do share them. This is an issue that’ll affect us all. And we have to take collective action to fight back. The real me is signing out for now…
Alex of Arabia's Blog 