The new con game in town is not pata potea. Some bloggers are known to have a bad reputation by holding corporates at a hostage situation. Renowned bloggers claiming to be corporate fraud investigators have been caught up on the record trying to solicit for bribes and be quiet. Real whistle blowers keep on saying the truth as it is, they don’t deviate from it with insults hurled to corporates or senior management.
We are slowly drowning to accepting social media harassment as a necessary evil which should not be allowed, bloggers and social media influencers ought to ask themselves if what they are pushing is morally and legally acceptable. Bloggers have also been known to have ulterior motives while defaming brands online with the end game of ‘winning’ business. Real online whistleblowers do document their findings carefully to support their conclusions. It’s not advisable to use hearsay or leaked files for your files.
The game here has changed, all you need to have is a few twitter accounts, an army of bots sort of and a good internet connection. They flood social media timelines with a particular hashtag day in day out purporting to be whistle blowers yet they harass individuals and corporates. They also have proxies who might “negotiate” a fee with the corporate being attacked online in the pretext they’ll never ever be attacked online.
Brands have two options while they are harassed online by the bloggers and social media influencers, address the concern at hand or be quiet. Addressing small fires day in day out will lead to a burn out if it’s a series of online attacks. Brands can also learn from the online attacks on developing and offering better products and services if need be.
It’s a high time such bloggers be brought to the limelight for their dubious methods and be investigated on who really funds them and feeds them with half-baked information.
Be on the lookout, there's fake and real news, there are fake and real bloggers too.
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