The shallow waters of social Media - A case study

Who doesn't know Virgin Australia, for those of you that don’t know, it is not Australia’s National carrier but a privately ran company owned by the business man, Richard. I always assumed it was her National carrier.

With the recent integration of business affairs with social media, there are certain obligations that must be kept sacred so that she does not fall into a legal hole.

          Effective Information: The airline has the moral duty to monitor and make sure that the information given to her clients (travellers) is concise and accurate and also given in a timely manner. Such information as regards to flight details and sudden change in schedule should be directed to the travellers in due time. 

This brings us to the people in charge of the information dispersal or the systems capable of providing such information. With the over sophistication of social technology and technology at large, it is still a possibility for it to fail people, therefore competent people should be put to monitor those technologies so as to avoid technology error which will be due to human error.

         Accurate Information: Consider a scenario whereby wrong sales information is being transmitted  via Facebook purposely by the social media manager or better still the system responsible for  pricing is hijacked and compromised by a grumpy employee. In this example, an employee is distributing false and misleading information that will lure potential customers into a trap. The language or medium of communicating that is supposed to be made plain and easy is being compromised. This information security threat would lead to lawsuits and unhappy customers.

           Security: Confidential information can be breached by hackers or people that have the technical  know-how on how to carry out an attack on the company’s IT infrastructure. For instance, the  airline’s blog or news feed that is responsible for carrying out information feeding to her customers  could be hacked and this could lead to legal consequences for the airline as a result of the attacker  putting misleading information that causes the client’s duress or hardship. Such news feeds  compromised could include core databases, core servers and core IT services that is responsible  for serving the people.

          Misconstrued Information:  Advertising is a very interesting and powerful tool that helps pass a message over and over again. Now can you imagine a seemingly innocent looking advertisement that appears good and everyone is fine with that, but some people don't like it because it creatively  maligns their person or they simply don't like it at all and they sue.

Privacy Breach. Technical glitch making customer confidential information been breached and posted online, it sure sounds familiar.

Defamation:  Slandering of other businesses can lead you into hot soup. This involves saying not  true things against other businesses, including individuals and engaging in acts that can damage the  other company’s reputation. Although this maybe common when disgruntled travellers miss their flights, it is still a possibility to escalate to something of legal proportions when done by an employee or even an employer harassing the business integrity of another in a way to reap results.

In conclusion, a strict social media policy should be enforced that will cement the varying loopholes of social media with business in the aviation industry in general, not only Virgin. Such policies should address confidentially, information accuracy, effectiveness and information privacy. It should include acts and precautionary measures on employers as well as employees so that the aviation industry can drive smoothly without taking a break to the courthouse.

 

Qantas is the National Carrier of Australia. Now you know. J