New Media, public relations • April 17th, 2008

Divorce, YouTube-Style

by Chris Lato

Divorce by YouTube

Since my business is communication…and business is good!…I am fascinated by disturbing new trends, like this video. Some of the discussion in the middle of this clip may be NSFW if you’re in a prudish environment…so keep the volume low.

This is pretty groundbreaking in all the wrong ways. I can’t believe her estranged hubby won’t sue over this, and I can’t imagine he wouldn’t win, but what does this open the door to? All sorts of wild, unsubstantiated allegations posted on video? I know in many ways, the Internet is already the wild wild west, with all sorts of crazy stuff being posted all the time. But this seems to take things into newer territory, where it becomes easy for ‘regular people’ to accuse and embarrass one another without the benefit of a fair response.

Also, what’s to stop disgruntled former employees of businesses making videos accusing the company of engaging in illegal or unethical conduct (except for the obvious lawsuit)? Are businesses prepared to respond fast to something that can spread like wildfire if it has a good hook? It is what crisis communications is all about, and I suspect too many businesses – and people in high places who could be slapped with this kind of stuff – may not have the first clue as to how to respond. Online crisis communications doesn’t get a whole lot of attention and this trend could get a lot bigger before all is said and done.

Think PR, people…(end of commercial).

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 7:38 am and is filed under New Media, public relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.