On the Internet, nobody knows…

(Peter Steiner, page 61 of July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker, (Vol.69 (LXIX) no. 20)

The above cartoon, the oldest and most reproduced comment about online anonymity you’re likely to find, sums up another local problem we’re having with our critics. As with the phantom Tweeter (Twunt? Twit? Twat?) a few weeks ago, someone has a pop from within the invisible cloak of anonymity, leaving us chasing shadows when we go to respond and engage in some constructive dialogue.

In this case, the initial critical comment, in response to the announcement of LBi’s new Customer Interaction Department on Brand Republic  was taken down fairly promptly because it used banned language - language we’re ok with at LBiQ, crude though it be, so we’ll reproduce the initial comment here, in full:

“woohoo…. way late to the party and already pushing the typical agency shite that says absolutely nothing about anything — a cracking start!”  - Down Low

(I now find that a second comment from our invisible frenemy Down Low, in which she or he criticised Brand Republic for removing his/her original post, has also been removed - presumably for being facile rather than offensive.)

Two things about this:

1) ’shite’ aside, the initial post offers opinions (one we don’t agree with, obviously) about the quality (’shite’) and timeliness (’way late to the party’) of the announcement; but also a statement about the content of the release, which is indisuptably wrong: the release says plenty: names, date, positioning, services to be offered, all in the context of CRM-enabled social/conversation marketing, packed as customer interaction. Read more closely next time please, Down Low!

2) If you look up Down Low’s profile on Brand Republic you find that ‘no biography is available’. Of the five other posts Down Low has made, three have been deleted (including the two about this particular announcement) and of the other two, one reads ‘really weak to eliminate my comment’. Go figure.

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Indeed, to quote ourselves  (pp56-57, in ‘No can has meaning’), on the internet ’we also don’t know whether the person or machine with which we’re communicating is a financial ally or a fraudster, a friend or a foe, a threat or an opportunity, a potential lover or a predatory rapist’.

But what we do know is that entirely critical, non-constructive comments from  anonymous posters do indicate qualities of cowardice, spite, mean-spiritedness and lack of interest in having a public conversation about how we - the online population - work together to improve things - this last being the very thing that Down Low criticises Brand Republic for not demonstrating.

Not very credible, Down Low, but do feel free to comment here if you’re willing to have a sensible and constructive conversation about how you think our new Customer Interaction Department could be improved.