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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."
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.
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
In Customer Intimacy:
/. story rightly believing he was censored)
<May 5, 2005 2:26:43 PM PDT> thomashawk complained about the media center pc support
(Tom's post disappears, Tom writes a
<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.
For context, click Parent.
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.
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.
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.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain