Uh So, I'm Andrew Cloak. I'm a lecturer in uh the Department of um Media Production and Management and Technology at the
University of Florida. I'm also the program coordinator for the online master's program in social media at the University of Florida
Uh I have a phd from the University of Florida in Mass Communications
I have a master's degree from George Mason University in Communications. And my undergraduate degree is from the University of Virginia in American
History. Section 223 is beneficial to citizens. So section 230 of the Communications
Decency Act is essentially what gives us the internet as it exists today
Uh Without section 230 you would have social media companies, you would have blogs
you'd have websites that would be responsible for every piece of content that any user posts
Um Whether it was a dating app, whether it's Facebook, whether it is an Amazon review
whether or it's Yelp. Um It essentially allows every tech company to be seen as not a publisher
of content but sort of a social media platform. Um And this prevents it from being sued for libel for things that users state without
section 2, 30 you would have these essentially tech companies be looked at as newspapers and as a newspaper
anything that is on that platform posted by anybody, just as if it was a reporter working for a newspaper
that company would be responsible for. So section 230 going back to the nineties is essentially created the internet that we have today
It's created social media as we have it today. And without section 230 the internet
as we know, it would be completely different. Uh We would be looking at a vastly different online experience
We'd be going back in time to kind of the al almost dial-up days of the internet
Um Even maybe kind of the very early dial-up days of the internet where we just had sort of the bulletin board system
Um And I don't think that this country or any country could go back to those very early internet days
Are you in favor of uh keeping section two theory the way it is or changing
Section two, the I think section 230 the unintended consequences of getting rid of it I think are um often not
thought of or not discussed enough. Um in terms of what the changes would be
I think section 230 as it is um is something that is vital and necessary for us to have the internet that it exists today
Does that mean that extra rules and regulations can't be put in place? Of course
you know, there's a, plenty of things that need to be done because section 230 is also
you know, we're looking at it coming up on being, you know, almost 30 years old
And when it was first passed, it was a vastly different internet than we have today
It wasn't an internet with smartphones, it wasn't an internet with Facebook and these tech companies with multibillionaire owners
It wasn't an internet where, you know, we were taking pictures on a s uh
a phone and we were immediately uploading it to social media or uploading it to the web
So it is a bit antiquated in terms of how, when it was passed
compared to the internet that we have today, it would almost be the same as if we had laws in place that were regulating horse
and buggies and trying to apply that to, you know, uh, uh
some type of mustang or Camaro. Uh, it, it's just not quite what it needs to be
But again, I think without it, we wouldn't have gotten to the
the place that we are now with the internet and despite all of the problems
the issues and, and there are some pretty significant ones. Um, I
I don't think that we, as internet users could go back to those pre sort of internet days when we just had the bulletin board
system, you know, depending on who's, you know, watching this. Some people may not even remember bulletin boards
Um, and, and for those who don't believe me, you don't want to go back to the bulletin board days
um, where it's basically just, I, I will click on a button and it
you know, pre mouse days really? Uh, and I'll click on, you know
six and that will six will give me a story. And then if I want another story
I'll click on h that, that is not the internet that we wanna go back to
Um So yes, could new laws, new rules, new regulations be passed
That would deal with a lot of the issues that we have in tech 100%
Should we get rid of? Section 230? The again, the unintended consequences and what that would mean
I think would be devastating for the online experience. And the thing is
I think, you know, you have a lot of people are saying we need to get rid of section 230
Section 230 is bad and I think it's just more of a political talking point at this point
Well, or it could be ignorance on the part of the person who's saying it. But I think a lot of it is a political
talking point to try to be an attack on Big Tech without actually doing anything
Um I, I think if you were to actually get down into trying to get rid of section 230 if it was Congress attempting
to do it you know, we can already see that Congress has a hard time passing something as simple as our bridges are falling down
We should probably raise some money to pay for bridges to not fall down
Uh, you know, they struggle with that, getting rid of the internet as it exists and the impact it would have
I think them passing a law to do that or, or overruling or overturning or that
you know, doing anything to it are most likely not going to happen
But then again, I don't know if we can really put anything past Congress at this point
Either consumer videos, videos are important to consumers have been proven through numerous studies that show
Do you, I would say you are very well educated in social media
Do you believe in radius? Do you trust Radius? You know, I think it's one of those things where it's a grain of salt
Um You know, I definitely will look at them. Uh I, I would say that uh you know
you, you again kind of have to think about where it came from
Um And, and there's, there's reviews on everything anymore. Uh You know
you, you look at a product on Amazon, there's reviews, you look at a product on Walmart
there's reviews um you look at Yelp, there are reviews on there
Um You know, Tripadvisor, there are reviews on there. I've left uh my own Google reviews uh I actually made did a review
on Tripadvisor just this past weekend. So I know I post them
Um I'm not saying I do it very often. I'd probably say over the years
I've done less than 10. Um But, you know, I've done them and
and I will go through them, you know, but a big part for me is not necessarily looking at the comments that people left
Um It's more looking at some of the visuals that people left, especially if I'm using something like tripadvisor
Um You know, I wanna see what the place is gonna look like before I travel to it. But I I know that these reviews
sometimes are some sometimes useless. So again, it kind of goes back to what
you know, that media literacy aspect of when you're looking at these reviews
why do you decide to trust one over the other? Is it just one experience one person had
Is it part of a trend? Um You know, we can see these reviews every time you want to download a new app and you
know, you can read the reviews there if it's um you know, you can go to the better Business Bureau and you can look at
the reviews there. I I will say that not anecdotally but on a personal level
Uh last year, I was prepared to buy a new house and there was uh a neighborhood I I liked the
the price of the house was kind of fit within my budget and looked up the builder on a better business bureau's website and saw
just a horrible reviews left for them, um, and shared it with my real estate agent and I was like
you know, this builder really has some terrible reviews. They said, well
let's go take a look at, you know, their model homes, which were in another town
they didn't have any models here in this town and we went to go look at their model homes and he and I were both
just kind of shocked that these were the houses that they picked to be model homes
And we just saw a number of problems that all kind of matched the
the, some of the reviews that were left on the better business bureau site
And, you know, that's the thing like, you know, what you see online should not become gospel to you
Um, what you see online is something that you should cross-reference that
you know, you should maybe check for yourself. Um, you, you can't
uh I don't wanna say you can't trust the internet, but it's, um
you know, trust but verify, I think is, uh sort of the, the common phrase
you know, you, you don't want to just go to web MD and get one
you know, kind of do one search result. So like I have an itch under my arm and
you know, it's under your arm. You have cancer. It's like, oh my God. I have cancer now because I have
it's under my arm. It's like, uh, no, maybe you scratched yourself, you know
you know, maybe you should switch deodorants. There could be lots of other reasons
It might not be cancer. Um, so it, it is that idea of
you know, you gotta be smart when you're using the internet. And, um
you know, that includes reviews but, you know, I, I think we would all agree that sometimes we're not the smartest internet users
Uh, and if there's something we can definitely agree on is that other people are not the smartest internet users
in your personal opinion. Do you trust more positive radius or negative radius or you think they are
identically mixed of truthfulness and falseness? I think it, it's again, one of the things that you have to look at is what
what is it on balance. So if I'm reading reviews for a product
if I'm reading reviews for, uh, a destination, if I'm reading reviews for a restaurant
generally, you know, you can see how many five star reviews and one star reviews there are
Well, I mean, that to me kind of one of the first things to look at. If it's got
you know, an even number of fives and ones that's probably not a good thing
If it's, you know, got a lot more ones than it does fives
that's also probably not a good thing. But we do know that and and
and maybe we're gonna touch on it in the second here that with things like cancel culture
um you might see a bunch of one reviews, not because you have people who've actually gone into that business or have any experience with
that business, but it's just maybe the owner or an employee there said something and now people are flooding it with bad reviews
Um But I, I think the major thing is again, you know
taking that aspect out for a second. Um, you know, I think if you see something where the
the reviews seem to be on the two extremes, you know, it's
it's fives and ones that would kind of lead me to believe that the
there's maybe it's not so much the product being reviewed, it's, you know, maybe the person
the owner on the, the cancel Culture side. Um, you know, because people can have ok
experiences, you know, not everything has to be horrible or fantastic. You
you could go into a place or you could buy a product and you're like, yeah, it was fine like it
I, I didn't pay for a lot for it so for what it was worth. Yeah. Ok
Um so I, I think a lot of it is, you know, there's kind of the quantitative side and the qualitative side
like how many fives and ones do we have? And what are the quality of the reviews that are being left and
and kind of perusing some of those reviews and seeing what people are saying in terms of the actual words and not just
you know, the end of the day, like how many stars something got
uh, because there's a lot of different things that can go into that. And I guess if we look at it from an even larger
perspective, we're kind of now placing some trust in the internet and on the website that we're looking at that they have accurately provided
all of the reviews and we could get into a much bigger question right there
How do you feel about a company that does not publish all the negative reviews
publishes only the positive reviews and just remove hides from public view of the negativity that people have posted about
them. I think there's a lot of things that go into that one is
you know, I if you go, I, if the company itself is providing the reviews
um I, I would be willing to bet that they're only going to provide the best reviews
You know, if, if I am literally in charge of the content that I'm providing and it's my website
I'm not going to list. Yeah, this customer said that, uh you know, my product is terrible and this customer over here said that the
service was terrible there. There, there's no II I would be willing to bet there's not a company in the United States that would be
you know, show facing their terrible reviews. Um It, it seems to go uh literally against what we would think of with brand building
Um you know, we only get, you know, fivestar company, you know
great, great customer service. You know, that's that what they're going to promote
So I would be shocked uh if there was a company that provided their negative reviews II I think about um
you know, myself as a college professor. uh, you know, we get course evaluations at the end of every semester
And, you know, if I was to, to talk to my class the next semester about
you know, here's how, well I did last semester I wouldn't tell them about
Yeah. So this student said I was terrible and this student said it wasn't funny and this student said the class was boring
Like I would, there was absolutely no way would I give those reviews
Uh, I would give just the reviews of the, the, the students who said, oh, it was great
The class is wonderful. Um, and, and that's what I think companies do here because again
I, I would be just absolutely amazed and it seems like the antithesis of what you would do from apr standpoint of
you know, here's where we were terrible. Here's, here's, um, you know
how bad our product is according to these good, uh, customers. Uh
and, and so, yeah, I think if you're looking at the reviews that a company is providing on itself even if they are trying to
seem a little balanced. Um, and trying to say, well, we're not just
we shouldn't just show them all of our best reviews. Uh, we should show them some negative ones
The negative ones are probably not going to be that bad. It
it's kind of reminiscent if you go into a job interview and, and
you know, the, the hiring manager goes, well, what's your biggest weakness
Uh And, and the, the employee says, well, my biggest weakness is I just work too hard
Um You know, it's, it's kind of like, oh, so you're that you're the bad thing about you is how hard you're going to work
for me. Ok. Um And, and yeah, so I can't see companies really putting out their
their biggest complaints or their most negative reviews if they put out any
Um because I just, I just don't see it as something. Um unless it was like you're saying it was required in the UK
I just don't see it as something that is a good business practice to uh kind of promote the any negative uh comments or reviews
about your product, your service, your company or your business. Check out this consumer dot This consumer.com reviews
All the negative reviews that have been posted about this consumer on our website are published
Our views on it are the following. It is a consumer feedback
If consumer doesn't like something about us we publicly share and we take into account how
do we fix our processes? Internal negative consumer feedback. Actually, I think gives the road map
for the company how to address in external communications that the company makes the biggest problem
The biggest source of uh reviews that we are getting is a miscommunication
A company put out a communication in some way, it could be through the sales process
it could be through the marketing process. It could be through millions of other ways in which company communicates and brands to the world
And then something went wrong in the how consumer understood the company
It is all about communication well, and sometimes things do happen, but it is in the hands of the company to fix the situation
to address the issue. So we are proponents of freedom of speech
We let people speak freely on our website. And from the very beginning
we put out uh the ruling people can post negative things about this consumer and their public
I think about the fact that there, there is an aspect of that that's beneficial
I mean, you want, you know, I if you are, if you're a company that actually it just in general
if you're a company that wants to improve and, and provide a better service and provide a better product
you have to be willing to take criticism. I mean, this is literally true of anything
If you're a professional athlete, if you're a student, if you're a business, like you have to be willing to take constructive criticism
you know, there's obviously the criticism that is, is pointless. You know, there's the criticism that that is just an attack
it's not meant to really do anything besides, you know, being an attack
but you have to accept criticism and be willing to improve if that's something that you want to do
Uh you know, the the flip side of it is, you know, you can go on to uh again
like you can think about something like Yelp and people are leaving reviews for a restaurant and then you can see the um the the
owners or someone at that, that particular restaurant responding back to the criticism that's left
And sometimes it's like, you know, we apologize that you had that experience like that is not like how we want to do our business
Um Please give me a, send me an email here or give me a call
I'd like to help, you know, solve this issue and, you know, again
like that's ii I think people see that and, and they respect that
but I've also seen the opposite where, you know, you have the owner or
you know, a person responding back and it's like, well, I don't think you ever came into our restaurant and that's not what we're like
at all. So you don't know what you're talking about or you know, leaving just comments like
well, you can, I remember you coming in and you were just rude to the waitress and like
you didn't leave it. It's like now you're just seem combative and you see
like if you're in a service industry, like the last thing that anybody wants to deal with in a service industry is somebody who is
combative or rude. And if you're kind of doing that on social media for the world to see
uh you know, that that's going to not help at all. But I
I think II I see what you're talking about. Um I think there again
there's tremendous value in it being able to accept criticism. We all know people in our personal lives who cannot accept criticism
I think we know people in our professional lives who cannot accept criticism or won't uh are are willing to accept criticism
Uh And we see this kind of across the board, whether it's a celebrity
whether it's a politician. Um you know, some people are, are take criticism very poorly
Um Some people are able to take criticism and use it to improve
Uh And I think the people who are able to use it to improve generally are going to be more successful in the long term
because they're, they're kind of taking that step back and, and reviewing
you know, OK, like what are we doing? Right? What are we doing wrong kind of doing that almost swat ysis of
you know, are, are we missing something. And if we're missing something
is, is it something where there's a whole new marketplace that might be available to us because we didn't think about being engaged here or
doing that. And, and that comes from sometimes having these outside, you know
opinions and voices and, and so forth because internally there's only so many people
Um, but externally, there's seven plus billion. What is your recommendation to the business or nurse that do
get from time to time negative reviews? Would you recommend those business owners
uh managers directors to respond to reviews, to respond to positive reviews
respond to negative reviews. You have a recommendation that you would make to business society as far as how to deal this review
Well, I don't think there's a one size fits all way to kind of address that I don't think there's AAA specific even rule of
thumb on how to address that. Um Because if you, you, you could talk about a business like Disney or you could talk about
you know, a local shoe repair shop and, and those are two vastly different companies that are gonna get different types of
you know, responses and reviews. I I think if you're, you know
Disney, Disney has plenty of pr people, they have plenty of people in their communications department to deal with all sorts of complaints and criticisms
and everything else. And they're also Disney and they don't care, they, they don't have to um you know
if you are a local business business owner, if you're a local mom and pop shop
if you're a local cobbler, um you know, I think a lot of this comes down to
you know, where is the complaint made? What is the validity of the complaint
So, you know, if you're a local business, you know, uh many local businesses are going to have a social media presence
Um Is it a negative review on one of your social media pages
So, you know, it's a negative review on an Instagram post is a negative review on a Facebook post is a negative view on a
tweet. Uh That would be one area. Is it a negative review on say Google or if you're a restaurant negative review on Yelp
that's sort of another one. If we're looking at that kind of
you know, smaller business or, you know, uh not, not that even necessarily just a
a one person business but, you know, kind of a small business of maybe only a couple of stores or a couple locations
you know, I think the big thing is to kind of look at what first of all is to look at
where was it the complaint made? Um And then to kind of really assess the validity of the complaint
So if you have a complaint made on your Facebook page of
you know, we got terrible service, you have a terrible product, whatever it is
One, you've got to kind of make a determination, was this really a customer? Uh And if it was
uh you wanna address that because this is now something that's been made publicly and you wanna address it in terms of having a conversation
with that person. Uh My, my biggest recommendation again for smaller businesses that aren't gonna be dealing with
you know, potentially billions of customers like Disney. Um you want to have a conversation with that person
Uh But you don't want to have that conversation openly on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram
You wanna have that conversation privately over email over, you know, over the phone because one of the things that you can do and one
of the great benefits that you can get is if you can turn that negative into a positive
Uh and, and you get what we would call earned media. Uh you know
you have somebody who complains and says, you know, I can't believe that I got this terrible
you know, uh product or service at your business. You say, hey
I'm really sorry that that happened. We'd love to have a conversation with you. Please email us here
Please call us here. You have the email conversation, you have the phone conversation
you solve the problem or figure out what the issue is or you explain how you're going to address that moving forward
you compensate the customer in some way. And then when that customer comes in hopefully you have improved that thing that you said you would
or you give them a different impression in their mind of what kind of business
what kind of company you are. Cause for the most part, when people go online to complain
they're, they're kind, they understand that they're a large part of it is just kind of shouting out
you know, at the ocean, they don't expect the ocean to respond. Um But when they
you do get a response and it's a genuine response. Um, you know
it can mean a lot. Now you do have to assess what the issue was
You have to assess who the person is. You know, is this somebody who has a legitimate complaint
Uh Is this somebody who, you know, for sure was in your business or
you know, has done business with your company? Um, but you, the best thing that you can do is always turn that negative into a
positive, um, a personal experience. You know, I've seen that where, um
a few years ago I actually had a pair of shoes. Uh, I was
I parked, I got in the campus, I was walking to campus
I was walking to my building and I had a pair of shoes and the soles fell off just while I was walking
Um, and lo but the, the top of the shoes stayed on because it was tied
So I basically walked the rest of the way of the building with no soles just on my socks
Um, got the class showed my students they had a nice laugh
uh, and I tweeted out, you know, to the company and I was like, hey, my shoes fell apart and they were like
we're so sorry. Uh, we'd like to move this to AD M we s you know
started to go back and forth through, uh, direct messaging on Twitter and they're like
we're really sorry about this. That's actually an older pair of shoes. But, you know
we, we feel bad. Uh We'd like to send you a gift certificate for $75 for you to get a new pair of shoes
I was like, that's awesome. So, of course, I tweeted out, hey
you know, this happened and, you know, the, the company uh is responding and
you know, they offered me the 75 I went to their website and I found a pair of shoes I like for 125
So, you know, I still wound up spending more money than they gave me
Um And, you know, continue to buy their shoes. So, i it's one of those things where you
you, you can turn a negative into a positive, you can turn somebody into an
an activist for you. Uh If you are sincere about addressing the criticism and that again goes back to being willing to accept criticism
um but willing to accept it. And then most importantly, if you can you want to take that conversation offline and offline
can also be email. Um but you know, a phone conversation, email something to where it's not just constantly like these posts being made for
others to join in on. You know, you don't like if it's on a Facebook page
you don't want someone leaving a negative post. You responding, they respond
you respond, other people start to see it, they start contributing to the conversation as well
One ee even if they are a supporter of yours, you don't want you one of your supporters attacking this person cause now they're on
the defensive and they're gonna become even more adamant about how bad your company is or two
You don't want someone else to see it and go, you know what, I also had a terrible experience there
They are a terrible company. Let's get them kind of like you don't want them to gang up on you
So instead you want to switch that to, you know, like I said
you must switch to offline as best as possible. Um Even if offline is email or direct messenger
I think the big thing is that uh and, and I talked to my students about this
we look at the fact that sort of media literacy was something that kind of developed over time
you know, in the, in the pres social media days, we expected people to become more media literate as they got older
Um and it was important because they were buying products, they're buying homes
they're becoming parents and everything else. Uh But we don't live in a time and an age where we can just allow people to slowly
develop that media literacy. It's something that they need very early on because of how impacted they are by social media
by media messages, by the bombardment of media messages. You know, it's not just
it's, it's not like when I grew up, when you grew up and it was just, there's the TV
you turn off the TV, and you go wander off and, and you're digitally unconnected
you're unconnected from the media world. Uh We are 24 7 connected
We're getting the notifications, the push notifications. We're looking at our phone first thing in the morning
last thing at night while we're eating uh while we're sitting at a stoplight and the need for media literacy and for individuals to be
more media literate has never been more important than I think it is in this very moment
And it's something that it needs to be addressed in K through 12 education
It needs to be addressed in college education. It needs to be addressed by parents to their Children
Parents need to be media literate to teach media literacy to their Children
Um And it's just such a vital thing when it comes to
you know, looking at finding which product to buy, which reviews to trust
dealing with fake news, dealing with, um, you know, information, whether it is something as simple as do I trust the weather that I just
got to, should I get a vaccine? Um that is, that has killed millions of people around the world
And, you know, when we don't, when we're not media illiterate, we're much more likely to believe in conspiracy theories
we're much more likely to believe in information. That's not true. Uh Because we don't know who to trust and how to accurately gauge information
So, and you, I wanna thank you very much for sharing your thoughts
your tips with consumers guys, everyone. Thank you for watching. You're welcome to share your thoughts on the topics of the social media
I really enjoyed today's conversation with Andrew. Please subscribe to our channel to follow consumer news and more expert videos