Social media disaster

“I know this post is going to break all hell loose, but would it be too much to ask mothers to cover the baby with a scarf while breastfeeding in public?”

With these words stylist “celebrity” Teri Niitti caused a social media rage in January 2016. He also posted a recognizable picture of the nursing mother without permission only making things ten times worse. Public soon blamed him of desecrating the mother and spreading negative atmosphere in general without understanding the hardships of motherhood and nursing.

The disaster could have been easily avoided if Niitti hadn’t posted the photo and thoughtless comment. He even himself knew it was something he shouldn’t say, but he did it anyway “breaking all the hell loose” as he said himself. 

Another mistake was to take the picture without permission. It is only common sense that you are not supposed to photograph others secretly and post the pictures online. The fact that the woman was recognizable and breastfeeding in the picture made the situation even more unreasonable.

The third mistake was that he posted the comment and picture on an airplane. This made it impossible for Niitti to react the rage he had caused, because he wasn’t aware of it. When he finally landed and saw all the commotion, it was far too late.

Finally Niitti deleted the picture and made his Instagram profile private. He apologized and admitted that he had acted carelessly. Apologizing was the only wise move he made, but it was still too late and it didn’t satisfy everyone. Even now you can find hundreds of breastfeeding pictures if you search #teriniittistyling on Instagram. This is a payback from mothers Niitti had offended with his post.

Turning a disaster into an opportunity

Another example is a potential disaster that was avoided with some smart communication. In March 2016 our school: Turku University of Applied Sciences, got its space on a spotlight as an advance assignments for movie degree entrance exams were released.

One of the assignments was to write a story that was supposed to comfort your friend who has lost their “dear virginity”. Assignment rose understandably some astonishment. The assignment was soon tweeted along with a picture and it got several retweets, they even made a news story about it on the Iltalehti tabloid.

The case could have turned ugly if the University hadn’t handled it with good humor. Soon the #rakasneitsyys (#dearvirginity) was simply a funny joke amongst twitter users and the University. If you don’t want them to laugh at you laugh with them, and most importantly know how to laugh at yourself. 

Dean Timo Tanskanen was interviewed about the case and he turned it around with his well thought answers. “We promise to provide an education where students can challenge themselves and their know-how”, he for example said.

In the end I think that the “disaster” caused more positive publicity than negative.

Next ten years of social media

Social media and internet evolve so rapidly and unexpectedly that I couldn’t possibly know what to wait after ten years. If I should guess something I would say that at least social media is here to stay, no matter what form it is going to take. 

Social media will probably get even closer with our real life entity and will probably be something that follows us around where ever we go as a part of us and our everyday life. At the same time it is going to be part of our normal work life. It might become something that we need even for the simplest tasks. Also social media is going to take more and more realistic forms. Live videos popularity is already proving this.

Internet collects so much information about us, that it will be likely that at some point personalized social media is going to be developed. It could unite all the services one needs. It might act even as our ID in the future, collecting data about our health, diet, location and interests connecting the data to government and removing our privacy almost completely.

At the same time protective services are going to be developed to ensure ones freedom to move around the Internet without being tracked all the time. 

But this is only me pondering and getting carried away :D