Behind The Scenes on Southern's Twitter (Newspaper Article)

[RichardN]

Should have redacted the twitter users' identities and not just the body of the threatening messages in my opinion...

https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news...ally-like-work-behind-southern-rails-twitter/

Southern Rail has been a trending topic on social media a number of times this year. Not always for positive reasons.

Strikes and engineering upgrades have seen embattled commuters vent their rage on Twitter and Facebook, targeting the rail company’s social media accounts with despairing messages as they struggle through reduced services. Some of these posts have turned nasty, according to Southern’s employees, who have to wade through the abuse to try and provide customer service to genuine enquirers.

The people who manage Southern Rail’s Twitter account have told i what it feels like to be told that they should “get f***ing cancer” and die “slow and painful deaths” on a regular basis.

 

[ooo]

Should have redacted the twitter users' identities and not just the body of the threatening messages in my opinion...

https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news...ally-like-work-behind-southern-rails-twitter/

If they are willing to send threatening messages publicly then they deserve to be presented in the article

 

[Surreytraveller]

I can't believe what anonymous people say to other anonymous people on the Internet is taken seriously by people. And I'm sure its worse for those having to deal face-to-face with the public.

 

[Darandio]

I can't believe the OP believes the names should be redacted.

 

[Surreytraveller]

If they are willing to send threatening messages publicly then they deserve to be presented in the article

If people wanted to hide their identity, it is easy to do.

 

[RichardN]

I can't believe the OP believes the names should be redacted.

More that the ICO could possibly think so.. Although the posts are public, they are tricky to find unless you know the twitter ID of the sender. Since some of the descriptions allow identification of the sender - I'd have greyed them out. Anyway I didn't post specifically to critique the decision to to grey out the names, more to point out the article, which is of interest.

 

[Carntyne]

They're public tweets, not tricky to find at all.

 

[AlterEgo]

More that the ICO could possibly think so.. Although the posts are public, they are tricky to find unless you know the twitter ID of the sender. Since some of the descriptions allow identification of the sender - I'd have greyed them out. Anyway I didn't post to critique the decision to to grey out the names, more to point out the article, which is of interest.

They aren't tricky to find at all, you just use Twitter's own search engine. https://twitter.com/search?q=ball cancer @southernrailuk&src=typd

It's journalism, they're reporting on people saying things - it's entirely appropriate that where possible they attribute the quote to the person who said it.

It's quite fair. If you don't want thousands of people to know that you wish the CEO of a train company gets ball cancer and dies, then don't post a public tweet saying you wish the CEO of a train company gets ball cancer and dies.

 

[DerekC]

I can't believe what anonymous people say to other anonymous people on the Internet is taken seriously by people. And I'm sure its worse for those having to deal face-to-face with the public.

I think the problem is that it's somebody's job to have to deal with this cr*p, and as one of the guys in the article says, it gets to you after a while.

 

[Surreytraveller]

I think the problem is that it's somebody's job to have to deal with this cr*p, and as one of the guys in the article says, it gets to you after a while.

I'm not saying its right, or not a problem, its just you've got someone hiding behind a computer screen, having a go at someone else hiding behind a computer screen. When I was their age, all this abuse was hurled directly at me in person. Managements' response years ago was 'They're just having a go at the uniform, don't take it personally'.

 

[Chrisgr31]

It doesn’t excuse it but the problem is one of frustration. The customers cannot complain to anyone that can actually make a difference. The Twitter team become the face of management because they are the only ones that can be complained to.

I have met some members of the team and like many of Southern’s staff they are customer focussed etc, but there is not a lot they can do.

It’s also worth remembering that before GTR Thameslink had a feed, Southern had a feed, and I assume Great Northern had a feed. Whilst they still each have a feed, the same staff do all of them. Bet the total number of staff is now lower!