Internet Activism-Blog #10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_7qrj1Fr-I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQL8QfyzcMs

My recent research for 375 class has enlightened me to how powerful internet activism can be. I was researching copyright laws and intellectual property rights when I came across a compelling situation concerning the Nestle Company. They are one of the largest food manufactures in the world.


The Nestle Company is currently under a political social media war for their threats made towards Greenpeace, consumers, and outrageous behaviors from their PR department. Greenpeace has consistently put pressure on the chocolate bar giant to eliminate the use of palm oil in their food manufacturing, namely KitKat production. Greenpeace has declared that the production of palm oil causes deforestation of the rainforests. Then the environmental group Greenpeace made a parody video connecting Nestle to deforestation and destroying the habitats for orangutans. Nestle countered with a request to have the video pulled from You Tube (They agreed!); then engaged in a “whizzing” dispute with Greenpeace, and eventually with consumers via Facebook. Nestle cited that they have the right to protect their intellectual property and that it was copyright infringement to alter their logos. Consumers became enraged with Nestle and responded through their Facebook account. The video was posted on You Tube and now has gone viral due to Nestlé’s claim of copyright infringement. You Tube has removed the video but many video sharing sites have reproduced the material. Now there is another parody video of Nestle employees discussing copyright infringement. Another parody was produced incorporating the logo of Nestle KitKat bar, replacing the name with the word “Killer.” Nestlé’s Facebook page has approximately 93,000 friends and growing daily. Most are consumers outraged at the negative behaviors of Nestle. Nestlé’s behavior has snubbed thousands of consumers who are threatening boycotts of their products.

The corporate responses came in the form of threats and mocking consumers, making matters worse. At one point, Nestle posted the following quotes on Facebook saying, “To repeat: we welcome your comments, but please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic – they will be deleted.”

When bloggers and consumers left advice for Nestle on how to embrace social media, they went on to say mockingly, “Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it’s our page, we set the rules, it was ever thus. You have freedom of speech and expression. Here, there are some rules we set. As in almost any other forum. It’s to keep things clear.”

And they went on with comments such as, “Oh please… it’s like we’re censoring everything to allow only positive comments.”

The PR did not stop there, and went on to correct grammar of the consumers comments, inciting a flurry of political demonstrations. This is when the social media political firestorm transitioned over to the physical world.

Nestle has retracted (at 90 MPH) their statements and apologized to consumers for their less than appropriate behaviors. The fallout from this incident will likely remain an issue as it demonstrates how internet activism can effectively bring global transparency to corporate America and its subsidiaries. Furthermore, Nestlé’s responses and behaviors will likely become a training video for corporate America’s social media departments on what does not work!
Do you think Nestle was correct in their claim of copyright infringement? Could this firestorm of internet activism been prevented? Thoughts?