How community managers can weather the fake news wave
In the era of fake news, the role of community management is more complex than ever before. Quiip’s Erin Tierney explains how to weather the storm and keep your brand intact.
We’ve seen the rise of the term fake news used in day-to-day communication since the election of Donald Trump, but historically, fake news has been apparent in waves. Propaganda and McCarthyism are two well-known examples.
Platforms that were once used to bring people together are now hostile environments, brands’ social media accounts are being hijacked by people spreading falsities, and there are eroding levels of trust between organisations, government, and the public.
hey erin – thanks for the article
just thought i’d add a quick 2 cents on upvote/downvote systems. IMO from a user perspective this is a horrible functionality that suppresses interesting, original content and perspectives that are contrary to the norm.
upvote/downvote encourages hiveminds and echo chambers. you could argue that brands want hiveminds, but realistically instituting up/down is the best way to fill your platform with bland, middle-of-the-road content that nobody wants to read. especially if downvoted comments get automatically hidden – it just destroys platforms and makes them resistant to critical perspectives and discourse.
if you have a look at some sites and platforms with up/down (reddit.com, youtube.com, cracked.com) the comments are incredibly banal and disappointing. also these communities are not safer or more tolerant because they have up/down.
i feel strongly that this is a mistake, and platforms who either institute up/down (examples above), or remove the ability to comment (theatlantic.com), or aggressively moderate contrary opinions (theguardian.com) are shooting themselves in the foot and disrespecting their community of readers/engaged users.
one thing i love about mumbrella is the robust comments and the culture of debate and discourse, and how rarely comments get completely deleted or blocked as opposed to light editing or rebuttal from the staff.
i think brands would be better off serving their actual communities rather than their ideal communities. perhaps this changes when talking about commercial “branded” communities as opposed to media/news platforms, but IMO the same principles of respect for users/customers should apply.
Hey 1212,
Yes, I agree and we are yet to see how this upvote/downvote system affects comments on Facebook. The functionality means that we are still open to attacks by groups of people to continuously upvote bad (or troll) behaviour so it appears at the top of the comment thread not un-similar to what’s currently being done with the reactions.
Erin