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Animal Ag Watch By Hannah Thompson-Weeman
Hannah Thompson-Weeman is president and CEO of the Animal Agriculture Alliance.

New, troubling ways activists are using social media as a megaphone

(The views and opinions expressed in this blog are strictly those of the author.)

Social media is one of the sharpest double-edged swords in modern communication. On one hand, it allows farmers and ranchers to amplify their voices and share stories, videos and photos directly with consumers across the country. On the other, animal rights activists have used social media platforms to make a few outlier voices sound like a much bigger crowd and attempt to silence anyone with opinions that don’t align with theirs.

As one example, a group of determined extremists have created a Facebook page where they refer to themselves as “hunters” and select certain farmers or ag businesses to target (referred to as “missions”). Followers will flock to the selected farm pages and bombard them with one-star reviews (despite never visiting or purchasing from the business), nasty comments and aggressive messages.

Activist groups will also send scripts out via email and urge supporters to copy and paste them on company Facebook pages. Here is one recent script:

  • I would really like to see [restaurant chain] take animal welfare more seriously. It's time to follow other chains and adopt a meaningful broiler welfare policy. Until then, I'll be dining elsewhere. Thank you. 

If your company (or the brands you supply) has a presence on social media, I recommend you familiarize yourself with these tactics and create a plan now for what you will do if you find yourselves as a target. Some companies that find themselves under fire will react under pressure and give in to activist demands in an attempt to make the negative attention go away. It’s important to remember that as long as you’re still selling meat, poultry, milk and eggs, you will still be a target.

A few tactics to consider if you do face this type of situation –

  • Have a social media policy posted on your page that says hateful or harassing comments will not be allowed. The policy should also address threats, foul language and vulgar images. Swiftly delete any comments that are against your policy and ban users making them. If you are questioned on this, refer back to your policy.
  • Consider temporarily taking down the review function if you get fake negative ones. You can report reviews to Facebook for removal if they don’t focus on your company’s products or services, but you can’t do anything about 1-star ratings without text reviews. Once you are ready to allow reviews again, encourage your customers to leave a truthful review to balance out low scores.
  • Do not engage with users who are posting hateful comments or sending messages. There is a big difference between someone respectfully asking a question or expressing an opinion and someone harassing you. Trolls don’t warrant a response.

Most importantly, don’t let what seems like a horde of angry people (most of whom have probably never supported your business or purchased your products) push you into making decisions that will negatively impact your actual customer base by eliminating choices or pushing up prices.

12/5/2017

 
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