The New Age of Customer Complaints

I've been away from the computer for several hours but have been following an interesting story via Twitter.  On April 18th the wacky left website Wonkette posted an incredibly cruel post attacking Sarah Palin's special needs son Trig on his birthday.  The post didn't really get any attention until today when it was noticed by some conservative bloggers who then brought it to the attention of everyone else.  Dana Loesch, writing at Big Journalism, has the story.

The vile attack on Trig was newsworthy enough, but what has happened since it became big news is even more interesting.  Wonkette is an advertiser-supported site...at least it was until today.  Whether any advertisers are left when this is over is yet to be seen.

Years ago if you wished to complain to a company about their product or advertising you'd have to write them a letter or call the company, a process that might not yield an answer or any kind of response for weeks...if ever.  Today pretty much every major brand has a Twitter account that's monitored by their marketing or P.R. departments.  If you send them a note via Twitter it's very likely it will be read quickly by someone whose job it is to stomp out fires should they pop up.  Today, a bunch of fires popped up for sponsors of Wonkette.

And the companies involved did not like finding their ads on a site attacking a special needs kid.  Papa John's Pizza quickly responded to complaints and pulled their advertising.  So did Huggies.  (Update: And now Nordstrom.) Other advertisers are being contacted as their ads appear on the site.  And in response, whoever is running the Wonkette Twitter feed immediately began attacking Papa John's.  That should be a warning to any company that current has ads on the site - you could be next.

And that's not all.  Some professional journalists are refusing to ever link to Wonkette again (as a side note, I banned links to Wonkette many months ago).

Frankly, I think it's a good thing whenever the wacky left shows their true colors as they did with the Trig post.  We need to see what kind of people they really are.

The folks at Wonkette are discovering that although there may be a First Amendment right to say what they want, there is no right to say it without repercussions.

UPDATE:  Legal Insurrection shows how Wonkette has regularly mocked Trig Palin and his disability.  Today's post was nothing new.