Community 2.0: Juicy Campus

Is user anonymity the key threat to brands on the social web?

I missed this Juicy Campus furor (+, +, +) in recent months yet found this intriguing story on Current TV.

The predicament detailed here reminds me of what many of our clients fear - anonymous social terrorists undermining brands on the social web by unfairly calling the brand a slut - with no recourse available to the maligned brand! Is user anonymity a threat to brands on the social web?

Obviously there is no easy answer as the social web can hardly be "controlled". But brands seeking to conduct social web ideas may learn from the success of other social web communities (think eBay and Amazon). These communities foster user privacy and protection yet users can't just say and do any ol' thing and not be held accountable to the community. Maybe this makes an argument for why brands must initiatiate where they want to participate and on what terms - jump in first before you're forced to defend yourself in forums you don't want to be.

For example, Starbucks, a brand that everybody has "2-cents" commentary about took the step of activating a Twitter account and forums like MyStarbucksIdea so that the discussion is moderated fairly (and aggregated in a central place so that suggestions are actionable, not just complaint rants. And everyone may have a go at responding to both good and stupid ideas. Its been interesting to note even President Elect Obama recently opened up the "comments" channels on his weekly YouTube address...now of the thousands of comments I've only noticed a few idiot elements. Will be curious to see if this maintains but I think taking the forward step of opening the response channels (and fostering transparancy with accountability controls like "vote up/vote down") actually deter some of the social web brand bullies.