HP Deletes Negative Corporate Blogger Comments

Thomas Hawk writes "HP has recently been making the rounds promoting their new company blogging efforts. Nora Denzel, HP's senior vice president and general manager of HP's Adaptive Enterprise and Software Global Business Unit has started a podcast and a number of new bloggers including David Gee, the head of worldwide marketing for HP's management software business, have also started company blogs. So imagine my surprise when I tried to legitimately leave a comment critical of HP at David Gee's HP blog and had my comment quickly erased and my HP passport (required to leave comments) revoked. Is it one-sided blogging to only let people say positive things about your company on your blog?" Update: 05/07 04:24 GMT by Z : Indeed, "Update: It would appear that David Gee has changed his mind and has reinstated my comment along with a comment from him saying he would pass the feedback along. A good first step. I've asked for an explanation as to why it was removed and hopefully will hear back soon."

Comments

change of heart?

[lecithin]

Sounds like they admitted what they did. Did it take a bunch of bad PR for them to have a change of heart?

"Earlier this week, an HP customer posted a comment about his experience upgrading a media center PC. His experience was not good and he let us know. We pulled the comment. This was a bad decision and we have reversed it."

Re:change of heart?

[Marnhinn]

Point is - can you trust them not to do so in the future?

They've pulled comments once and could easily continue to do so - I doubt most people would care enough to make a stink about it.

Re:change of heart?

[xstonedogx]

Can you trust their blogs in the first place? How do you know positive comments aren't just astroturf?

I think the point is that corporate blogs can be (and will increasingly be) used as marketing tools and should be treated with the same skepticism that you'd treat an advertisement or PR release.

Re:change of heart?

[erroneus]

If they want to impress people clearing away the negative comments isn't the way. (I guess they know that now) The way to really impress people is how they can handle it by adding a good reply or response to the comment and certainly by attempting to make-up for it in some way.

Every consumer knows not everything will be perfect every time. We expect it and while we accept that it happens, sometimes it is at the wrong time or is too expensive a mistake. A company can take such an opportunity to really shine their brightest by acting in the consumer's interests. Nothing could say more about how a company conducts business than how it handles the unfortunate situations that will occur no matter how hard they try to avoid it.

Re:change of heart?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with the parent's message in spirit, in practice it is incorrect to treat a corporation as monolithic. Legal doctrines arising from obscure footnotes in Supreme Court decisions written by clerks notwithstanding (Corporate Personhood) a corporation is actually a collection of disparate people of varying viewpoints, abilities, levels of knowledge, loyalty and engagement, often with widely divergent agendas, ruled over in an autocratic and massively inefficient manner. Those supposedly in control are insulated by so many layers of hierarchy from the actual day-to-day operations that they have no idea about what is actually going on in their business (a defense put forth in some of the recent corporate corruption trials), but instead rely on increasingly diluted summaries, overviews and statistics that are generated by people whose livelihood depends on putting the best face on things no matter what. Conversely, the directives received by the peons on whom the company actually depends are so mangled and misrepresented by the time they have filtered down through all the intervening layers of management as to scarcely resemble what the people at the top actually want. To the extent that corporations are successful, they are so because of the independent and often uncoordinated actions of small groups of talented and extremely dedicated people who manage to succeed despite their resistant corporate culture. When corporations fail, it is because these nuggets of productivity do not successfully counteract the rest of the rotting, bloated twitching carcass. My point is, we don't know, if it was simply the administrator of the blog who removed the negative comments, his manager who directed him to do it, or a stultifying policy straight from the top.

Re:change of heart?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have said many bad things about HP and -- I regret them all, they have my best interest in mind.. -- I could tell you more. Look at their printers, everything since the 5Si has been complete ly outstanding. In fact I know they would never edit posts.

It's their web server

[Quarters]

They have no obligation to host data on their servers that doesn't benefit them. If you have something negative to say about HP you have every right to publicize your message. HP doesn't have to pay for it, though.

Re:It's their web server

[springbox]

It's also deciving to people who think they can speak their mind to the writers. I doubt they have a clause in their terms of use that includes "your comments can't damage our corporate image."

Re:It's their web server

[pipingguy]

They have no obligation to host data on their servers that doesn't benefit them. If you have something negative to say about HP you have every right to publicize your message. HP doesn't have to pay for it, though.

True. However, if the goal is to have an open discourse towards the improvement of their products, this type of behaviour is, umm, not so good.

Then again, this could always be a post-Carly spin pseudo event designed to draw attention.

Yes, I have an original HP-11C and you can pry it from my cold, dead hand.

From Hawks Blog

[Anonymous Coward]

Update: It would appear that David Gee has changed his mind and has reinstated my comment along with a comment from him saying he would pass the feedback along. A good first step. I've asked for an explanation as to why it was removed and hopefully will hear back soon.

Why YRO?

[Speare]

Did you think you have the RIGHT to post something on their site and have it published continuously? It's their server, they can do what they want. Publish your own freaking blog. Your Rights Online, indeed.

Re:Why YRO?

[Malor]

I think that's exactly right. Newegg is a classic example of censored comments... but they admit it right up front, basically telling you right to your face that they delete negative comments about products and that you shouldn't make buying decisions solely based on their product feedback.

Now, I don't like their deletion policy, but their honesty about HAVING one means I still trust the corporate entity and continue to buy from them. I mostly ignore the comments, because I know they're biased. I'd PREFER for the comments to be mostly unedited. They would be more useful to me that way. But when they tell me right up front they're not, I have no problem with it.

So it CAN be done that way, and it's still ethical. Without that kind of disclaimer, however, a public comments section carries an implication that the public can freely comment. I don't expect fully uncensored comments, since they ARE a corporate entity and can't exactly be publishing every trollish, obscene, or off-topic thing that anyone wants to say, but it should be edited as lightly as possible.

Deleting negative comments because they are critical is highly unethical unless you are most clear, in big bold print, that you are doing so.

Re:Why YRO?

[Chess_the_cat]

You do have the right to know when a collection of postings has been filtered and censored.

The foresight of the Founding Fathers to add that to the Bill of Rights was truly astounding.

Jackass

[bitpart]

You made a jackass comment that was neither well written nor respectful (as you described it in your own blog post) on a company blog. I'm surprised they even put it back up.

Re:Jackass

[Vellmont]

Ah yes. The "they're completely within their rights, so it's OK" argument. "Jackassses" as you call them are completely within their rights, so I guess that's OK too.

Try to imagine a world where even though something is legal, it's not ethical. If I were married I'd be completely within my rights to have sex with another unmarried woman (Adultery is only illegal for women in Minnesota). That doesn't make it right, however. Try to expand your definitions of right and wrong beyond a legal/illegal one.

Re:Is it?

[goneutt]

Back when I worked for Bell Atalantic DSL Support a customer, disatisfied with his DSL service, created an Anti Bell atlantic DSL website, after which time a flag was put in his file to not speak with him.

Yer free to speak, and the truth shall make yee fret.

What was that proverb?

[Cytlid]

Some Japanese thing saying "If you believe everything you read, you shouldn't read."

I like screwing with people. I like managing a webserver. I'd give someone free hosting for their blog and change all kinds of stuff on them, bofh style.

Who cares, really? What if I wanted to say wh ILOVESLASHDOT ILOVESLASHDOT ILOVESLASHDOT nd that was on here for example, you don't think they'd edit it, do you?

HP is trying to have it both ways.

[hirschma]

It would be one thing if HP called the site a Postive Comments Only Blog, or something like that. But they call it a blog, a term that means one thing - a site for public news and discourse. Then they try to make it something else that suits their PR.

Either have a blog, or don't. That's their right, as it is their servers. But if you ask for feedback from the community, and you give the appearance of being impartial - deal with the consquences.

jh

Re:HP is trying to have it both ways.

[Cecil]

But they call it a blog, a term that means one thing - a site for public news and discourse.

Oh, is that the definition. Interesting. And here I was thinking "Blog" was merely a stupid abbreviation of "Web log". It would therefore mean that it is some kind of a web-journal where regular entries are made.

And personally, on my weblog, I'm not going to have any inhibitions about deleting whatever comments I want, for whatever reason I want. It's not a "site for public news and discourse". It's a site where I spew lies, write boring shit, display my incompetence for all to see, and occasionally put something interesting up (Much like Slashdot!) I think HP ought to have the same privilege on their own site.

Re:Is it?

[penix1]

"No. Because you're free to set up your own site and comment. Why the hell should they allow you to post whatever you want on their resources: get your own site."

Sure, that is one answer. Another is to use a site like /. to let others know. The blog they got going is a PR marketing tool and a new one at that. Deleting negative posts has a negative effect on that PR. If their only way to deal with negative comments is to delete them that speaks volumes of their ability to handle it in a PR kind of way.

B.

Slashdot $$$

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is it one-sided blogging to only let people say positive things about your company on your blog?""

Slashdot is wonderful! OSTG is great! No I'm not being paid to say such things

Loss of credibility

[Penguinoflight]

By revoking a comment simply because it was critical they showed they cant be trusted. Since HP is a big company and not just a 4 year old, saying "I'm sorry, and wont do that again" isn't good enough.

They need to provide something to gain peoples trust back, which will either be very creative or take a immense amount of time. This move alone is just PR, and probably doesn't indicate anything. Even if it does, HP will still have to work for years to gain peoples trust.

Re:Loss of credibility

[__int64]

"Even if it does, HP will still have to work for years to gain peoples trust."

We cannot nor we must not ever trust a corporation for any matter large or small. Certainly some corporations naturally carry more credibility than others, based off their current and past set of actions, but trust, no we must never trust them. For a corporation is nothing but a physical and legally instantiated embodiment of greed. As with all greed, it is all-powerful and all-corrupting and they will all eventually sour. Instead we must always keep a tilted eye and watchful minds, and never let our guard down. The moment we do they'll poison your water to save a few bucks. We must always watch and react swiftly; we must rebuke them through our buying power. Greed only understands greed, this is the only way they may be educated. Instruct them in these ways!

Um, check out the screenshot of the comment

[elo_sf]

Not respectful, not on topic, not even clear what the complaint is.

If I were HP, would delete it simply for incoherence.

See http://thomashawk.com/hello/305309/1024/HP%20Comme nt%20Screenshot-2005.05.06-08.19.47.jpg for screen shot.

How the situation went down

[me at werk]

In Customer Intimacy:

<May 5, 2005 2:26:43 PM PDT> thomashawk complained about the media center pc support

(Tom's post disappears, Tom writes a /. story rightly believing he was censored)

<May 6, 2005 4:14:43 PM PDT> D Gee responded and apologized for tom's bad experience

<May 6, 2005 4:41:33 PM PDT> thomashawk replied, saying: "Thanks for responding David. Can you explain why my initial comment was deleted and then reinstated? Thanks, Tom"

<May 6, 2005 6:23:53 PM PDT> D Gee informed him: "Tom - you can see my response in my entry "Taking it on the chin""

(Friday May 06, @07:24PM PDT, Slashdot post hits frontpage about HP censorship)

We had no effect on this. They changed their mind BEFORE they got publically shamed for it. Not that I'm agreeing with them removing the comment in the firstplace, but it's interesting.

This is hardly new..

[the_rajah]

Back in 1999 I had problems with the Rockwell modem in a new HP Pavilion desktop that I bought. The modem would dial and connect but could not maintain even a 28.8 connection on the admittedly noisy POTS line that I have in this older neighborhood. Every other computer in the house, including a Toshiba PII laptop had no trouble connecting and staying connected for hours. I went to the HP discussion forums for my model and posted questions. I called tech support and got a the news that it was a fine modem and that it was my phone line in spite of telling them that all other modems worked fine. I saw a post from someone else that had the same problem...and the next day it was gone. I posted my comments outlining the situation above and my message disappeared by the next day.

I wrote to the CEO, whoever that was before Carly, and pointed out the situation and mentioned that I run a discussion forum site of my own that gets around 75,000 visits a month and that my next step was to post a serious discussion about the modem and how I was treated on the HP forum. I mailed from Illinois on a Thursday. On Tuesday I got a call from a staffer at the CEOs office telling me that if I'd go buy whatever kind of modem I wanted and fax them the receipt, they cut a check for that amount and mail it the same day. I went and bought a US Robotics USB modem, the latest greatest, for some $239.00. I faxed the receipt, didn't even open the plastic wrap on the modem and returned it. By this time I'd already bought a Zoom external for $99 anyway. I got the check in 3 days and have lived happily ever after.

Re:This is hardly new..

[Dogtanian]

I'd like to point out that, while your exploitation of the situation was probably justified in that HP were only willing to help out under the threat of bad publicity, if they'd done the same thing in the first place, it would have placed it under a quite different light.

I've heard more than once people on /. comment that you should go to shop 'X', try out a product, then go to shop Y who sell it cheaper. Now, if X is a known overpriced box-shifter, fair enough. But as a general rule, this is ethically really lousy, and promotes the 'bad' retail practices that ./ers claim to hate. Frankly, it's "chicken and egg"; people bitch about bad retail practices, but if they encourage them, it's debatable who's to blame.

Of couse, /. is made up of individuals with differing views, but I'd be willing to be that those exploiting retailer X would be quite happy to complain about "bad service" chain stores.

This reminds me that I *personally* don't compliment/publicise retailers enough when they provide good service... :-(

Re:This is hardly new..

[gkuz]

I find it astoundingly hypocritical how you could write two long paragraphs about how you, in essence, stole money from HP, then finish that off with a sig saying "Do the Right Thing". If you really did what you described in your story, that was -- at best -- dishonest. Doing "the Right Thing" would, of course, have been sending them the receipt for the modem you actually kept and used, in case you are too ethically challenged to be aware of that.