Hong Kong Disneyland in Flickr Porn Embarrassment
While it is widely agreed that social media presents great opportunities for brands, it is also clear that it presents significant challenges — and even a few landmines.
Hong Kong Disneyland seems to be learning the lesson the hard way. The Flickr Group bearing their brand name includes links to pornographic content. The Flickr Group, named Hong Kong Disneyland (see, http://www.flickr.com/groups/hongkongdisneyland/), boosts more than 300 members, well over 2,000 images and a moderately active discussions section. For a Flickr Group, this is a relatively high level of activity. Moreover, the content and branding create a clear impression that this is an official — or at least officially sanctioned — Flickr Group for the park.
Problem is, the profile doesn’t belong to Hong Kong Disneyland. The brand has left their fate in the hands of a third party, who it appears is less than diligent about keeping the site child-friendly.
The profile is owned by a Flickr user named “Disneymike.” According to his Flickr profile, he is a “Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego Wedding Photographer” (see, http://www.flickr.com/people/disneymike/). In all fairness to Disneymike, his Flickr profile is squeaky clean and completely wholesome. He’s apparently not the party foisting porno on the kiddies.
Unfortunately for Disneymike, other members of the Group are not quite so wholesome. User stephanie3861’s profile is completely (without exception!) pornographic. The avatar — a bit of a graphic crotch-grabbing panty shot — would be your first hint that this may not be appropriate Mickey & Minnie content! Clicking on that avatar takes you to stephanie3861’s less-than-child-friendly photo collection. At least one other profile shows a profanity-laced user name.
While Disneymike might be faulted for not policing his Group more diligently, the fact is that the blame for this situation must be placed squarely on the shoulders of the brand owner – Hong Kong Disneyland. The situation here is exacerbated by the fact that Hong Kong Disneyland does appear to have an official profile on Flickr under the username “hkdlr” (Hong Kong Disneyland Resort)(see http://www.flickr.com/photos/hkdlr/). The Flickr user “hkdlr” is also a member of the Hong Kong Disneyland Group, where the offending profiles are located. By joining this Group, I would argue that Hong Kong Disneyland is giving their tacit approval to the Group — and to its contents.
As this situation illustrates, it is essential that brands should be in control of their own names on these sites. If you do not control your brand, you cannot control what happens or with whom it is associated.
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