Somehow the country’s major telcos have finished up in a stupid social media spat fueled by rent-a-quote and trouble maker Shaneel Lal.
The new app Threads had hardly hit the market late last week when Lal was on the case.
A message went on the app which said “Dear Threaders, Can we agree that we won’t tolerate TERFs on Threads. They’ve made the lives of trans-people living hell on almost all platforms. Let’s not allow their hatred to poison this app too. Requested with love. “
Someone on the Spark social media team, acting well beyond their remit, replied “yes please, wholeheartedly co-signed.” That was followed by the praying hands emoji.
Then came One New Zealand, formerly Vodafone, whose social media team replied “we don’t want them either. Not welcome here. We stand with you Spark NZ and anyone else brave enough to call them out.”
Bob McCoskrie from Family First checked in with Spark to make sure the response was genuine.
He received this back. “Morena Kotou Katoa. We stand by our response to Shaneel Lal on Threads. We will continue to support the rights of trans and non-binary people and we’re not interested in discussing this further. Thanks.”
What the hell is going on here?
Spark and One New Zealand are telcos. They exist to provide telco services.
They are not supposed to be indulging in social engineering or discussions on complicated social issues, especially when in this case they are nothing more than a transmission platform for an American owned app.
The second Spark response is the most disturbing. The company says it supports the rights of trans and non-binary people.
That’s good. I can too – but within limits.
I can’t agree to a trans-woman in women’s sport. I can’t agree to a trans-woman in a female changing space at a public swimming pool or gym.
But these are emotional discussions, which need a damn sight more nuance than some wokester running social media accounts from home at the weekend.
Management at both companies had to clean up the mess. This is what Spark posted on Monday:
“We recognise there are wide ranging views on how to create safe spaces in both the online and offline world and we will continue to live up to our own values, and our belief in diversity and inclusion, while respecting each person's right to their own view.
“We know our original posts did not reflect this well, and that's something we will learn from.
“We hope that this provides more context and some assurance that we support inclusivity and safe environments for all people.”
One hopes the writer of the original Spark posts has been firmly spoken to.
Customer pushback has been vocal but I doubt they’ll lose many connections over this.
However, what a company values more than anything is its reputation and this sort of debacle sticks.
The other lesson from this: Shaneel Lal should be just ignored.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack where this article was sourced.
Then came One New Zealand, formerly Vodafone, whose social media team replied “we don’t want them either. Not welcome here. We stand with you Spark NZ and anyone else brave enough to call them out.”
Bob McCoskrie from Family First checked in with Spark to make sure the response was genuine.
He received this back. “Morena Kotou Katoa. We stand by our response to Shaneel Lal on Threads. We will continue to support the rights of trans and non-binary people and we’re not interested in discussing this further. Thanks.”
What the hell is going on here?
Spark and One New Zealand are telcos. They exist to provide telco services.
They are not supposed to be indulging in social engineering or discussions on complicated social issues, especially when in this case they are nothing more than a transmission platform for an American owned app.
The second Spark response is the most disturbing. The company says it supports the rights of trans and non-binary people.
That’s good. I can too – but within limits.
I can’t agree to a trans-woman in women’s sport. I can’t agree to a trans-woman in a female changing space at a public swimming pool or gym.
But these are emotional discussions, which need a damn sight more nuance than some wokester running social media accounts from home at the weekend.
Management at both companies had to clean up the mess. This is what Spark posted on Monday:
“We recognise there are wide ranging views on how to create safe spaces in both the online and offline world and we will continue to live up to our own values, and our belief in diversity and inclusion, while respecting each person's right to their own view.
“We know our original posts did not reflect this well, and that's something we will learn from.
“We hope that this provides more context and some assurance that we support inclusivity and safe environments for all people.”
One hopes the writer of the original Spark posts has been firmly spoken to.
Customer pushback has been vocal but I doubt they’ll lose many connections over this.
However, what a company values more than anything is its reputation and this sort of debacle sticks.
The other lesson from this: Shaneel Lal should be just ignored.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack where this article was sourced.
2 comments:
Corporates should stay well away from intersectional, identarianist social politics.
Rule number 1 of business is that you do not mess with the people who spend their money with you.
Pandering to any community is always counterproductive to your core mission of making profit.
I doubt that the employee actually had as much 'lee-way' as this to bring Spark into a fight they cannot win the same as Anheuser-Busch found out with their Bud Lite campaign.
Spark, like One NZ and many, many New Zealand businesses will not have learnt this lesson because they are all seeming captured by the rapture of the 'latest' group think indentity social engineering.
But, that said they may learn to regret it and if they do then they may become better businesses serving all their customers.
I think it's who they have in management now I made a complaint to a well known auckland newspaper about a facebook post they did which was really bad taste and smutty. I got a response saying kia ora and essentially saying there was nothing wrong with the post. I think many of the corporates think it's cool to be woke.
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