- Coca-Cola has been forced to withdraw a Twitter advertising campaign after a counter-campaign by Gawker tricked it into tweeting large chunks of the introduction to Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
For the campaign, which was called “Make it Happy” and introduced in an ad spot during the Super Bowl, Coke invited people to reply to negative tweets with the hashtag “#MakeItHappy”.
The idea was that an automatic algorithm would then convert the tweets, using an encoding system called ASCII, into pictures of happy things – such as an adorable mouse, a palm tree wearing sunglasses or a chicken drumstick wearing a cowboy hat.
Yup. If ever there were a time to ban Gawker from Twitter, that time is now.The statement concluded: “Building a bot that attempts to spread hate through #MakeItHappy is a perfect example of the pervasive online negativity Coca-Cola wanted to address with this campaign.”
“I’m frankly ashamed of how poorly we’ve dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It’s absurd. There’s no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It’s nobody else’s fault but mine, and it’s embarrassing.
“We’re going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them.”
Check out the controversy section on their Gizmodo blog, which is easily the worst offender of Gawker. Jason Chen even earned an FBI raid of his house in the apple case. They've done enough to ruffle feathers from their sponsors at times. Their blogs are also staffed by immature idiots that want to stir up controversy facts be damned. Basically they embody everything that is wrong with the blogosphere. They act like a pack of hooligans that bully and abuse people, make stories out of it, then act like it's not their fault when they're called-out on it. They're the antithesis of professionalism and it's outrageous.
I remember when the whole celebrity leak thing happened earlier this year, they tried to do the whole "Stand by them in solidarity" thing, which was great! But it went against everything they've ever stood for, and they got quite a bit of flack for it. They've posted other celebrity nude leaks, and also refused to take them down for "Journalistic integrity," or something like that...It really ruined my perception of them, since it was one of the first times they'd ever been on my radar.
We can start with Nick Denton saying that you and I should have our privacy invaded. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/gawkers-nick-denton-explains-why-526548 We can continue with the leaking of all the firearm owners in NYC, including domestic violence victims hiding from their abusers. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-09/gawker-posts-list-of-new-york-gun-owners Gawker profits off of creating drama, and it does not matter who the target is. Think of 4chan, but with real power and reach. They do it for the "lulz."
I agree. I find it interesting that Coke shut it down though. I get that they don't want to be seen as endorsing Hitler (and this is super bad press for them), but wasn't the whole point of this to take unpleasant text and turn it into happy ascii art? I'm not sure that people intentionally feeding it awful things really subverted its purpose...
So Coca-Cola has been on a roll with the Hilter shit lately: