Bloggers: Use Your Powers For Good, Not Evil!

It seems like all I read these days are posts about the new FTC regulations, or about bloggers who are all "SQUEE!" and "!!!" and "OMGLIKEIT'STHEBESTTHINGEVAHHH!"  And while I agree that the blogging community is saturated with review posts positively glowing about crappy second-rate products, I wonder if we pay as much attention to the opposite.

Calling out a brand/company/product/employee on our blogs.

I've done it.  I called out a company after an employee stole my information and used it to her own benefit (ie, signed me up for a store credit card and helped herself to my credit).  I publicly disclosed my story because I was infuriated by a situation that I felt was out of my control.  I was angry that I would now be faced with dealings including credit card companies, the idiosyncrasies of corporate bureaucracy, and other annoying things.  I had no other means of retribution other than to blog, multiple times, and demand that I be heard.  I wanted everyone to hear the story.  And I used my power to disseminate information and partied with it like it was 1999.

But I'm not sure I accomplished anything by putting this information out there.  I'm not sure I helped anyone, since my experience was likely the exception - not the rule - to any experience typical of this company.  It was likely an aberration and could have been handled offline. 

With more grace, admittedly.

I see posts like mine all the time.  Posts in which a blogger, who may or may not be influential, goes off on a tangent about an awful experience they had with a store/brand/employee.  And I know while I read the post, I often think, "wow, this person might need to get out of their own way."  Because posting an employee or store manager (or whoever wronged the blogger)'s name on your website says nothing about anyone other than the author.  It says they're angry.  And it says that they have a certain amount of power, and they might be abusing it.

I'm just not sure blogging with disdain about one employee within a whole corporation is compatible with blogging with integrity.  In fact, blogging with integrity includes a pledge to "treat others respectfully, attacking ideas and not people."  And posting the name and location of a store manager who did not treat you the way in which you expected definitely does not adhere to this stipulation.

Who cares, right?  I mean, it's my blog - I can say what I want on it.  You don't like it, don't read it.  True.  However, like it or not, we bloggers represent an entire community.  We're a LOUD community and we don't like it when we're trash talked, when we're looked down upon by traditional media and others.  So let's not earn their disrespect.  We have a certain amount of power, we know that.  So let's use our powers for good, and not for evil.

M'kay?

Comments

[Annie @ PhD in Parenting]

I tend not to post about bad one-off experiences I had with a company, but I do post frequently about consistently bad or unethical tactics used by companies.

While that may be perceived as "evil" by those I am calling out, I see it as "good" for society overall.