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Tag: Fahmi Fadzil

  • Twitter Apology Update: Mission Accomplished

    Last week, we discussed the punishment of Fahmi Fadzil, who was found to responsible for defaming BluInc Media & Female Magazine concerning the company’s apparent treatment of a friend of Fadzil. While defending his companion, Fadzil posted a tweet that the company in question didn’t treat pregnant women fairly, which led us to the Fadzil’s Twitter punishment phase.

    For his offending tweet concerning BluInc Media, Fadzil was ordered to issue an apology via Twitter, but instead of just issuing one apology to make things right, the Malaysian court ordered Fadzil to essentially an out-of-court settlement was reached that had Fadzil write his apology on the chalkboard over and over again to the tune of 100 times. As of Friday’s post, Fadzil had reached 70 apologies, which said:

    I’ve DEFAMED Blu Inc Media & Female Magazine. My tweets on their HR Policies are untrue. I retract those words & hereby apologize.

    Simple enough, especially in this, the age of copy and paste commands. In order to differentiate his apologies, Fadzil numbered each tweet, and his 100th was posted on June 4, and it received over 100 retweets. Of course, by that time, Fadzil’s story had hit the mainstream wires, appearing in a number of noteworthy publications, which Fadzil documented at his blog. One of the sites in question, Jezebel.com, questions the effectiveness of such tweets, and wonders if the punishment damages Fadzil’s reputation, reducing his effectiveness as an activist:

    In addition to being humiliating for Fadzil, it will probably be really annoying for his 4,200-plus followers, some of whom may well unfollow him to avoid being subjected to his half-hourly apologies. The penalty may also damage his credibility as an activist — how much will his readers trust him after he’s agreed to retract one of his statements 100 times? BluInc probably considered all of this when negotiating the settlement, and in a way the punishment they arrived at is pretty ingenious.

    As for Fadzil seeing a reduction in followers because of his apologetic tweets, in fact, the opposite happened. While he may have lost a member or two of his core audience, Fadzil’s Twitter follower count actually increased to over 5500, an increase of over 1300 followers. Conversely, Fadzil’s follower increase undoubtedly was a result of his story hitting the wires, so there’s no telling how many of his additional followers actually care about the causes he supports.

    Was this an effective manner of punishment or, considering the instantaneous nature of the Internet news cycle, will Fadzil’s story be soon forgotten, reducing its potential impact?

  • All Apologies: Is Twitter the Modern Day Chalkboard?

    Remember when you used to get in trouble in school as a youngster? Remember having to write out a “I will not do _______ again” apology on the blackboard repetitively as punishment for your shenanigans? In case you’re aren’t sure about what I’m referring to, think of the the introduction to The Simpsons television show as it famously makes use of this kind of punishment via Bart Simpson.

    Like so:


    Anyway, it appears that, besides being one of the primary methods for communicating on the Internet, Twitter is also serving as a virtual chalkboard for those who find themselves in a position of being legally forced to issue an apology. Just ask Fahmi Fadzil. Fadzil was ordered by a Malaysian court to issue an apology 100 times via his Twitter account after he was found responsible for defaming the Blu Inc Media & Female Magazine.

    The trouble began when Fadzil issued a tweet that called out the company in question for the apparent mistreatment of a pregnant employee, one who was also a friend of Fadzil. Although Fadzil quickly tweeted an apology, that didn’t stop such vicious punishment from being handed down by the Malaysian court system. The apology in question is phrased like so:

    I’ve DEFAMED Blu Inc Media & Female Magazine. My tweets on their HR Policies are untrue. I retract those words & hereby apologize.”

    As of this post, Fadzil is up to his 70th apology, as I’m sure he’s making liberal use of his computer’s copy and paste shortcuts. In case you’re curious, the tweets in question look like so:

    70/100 I’ve DEFAMED Blu Inc Media & Female Magazine. My tweets on their HR Policies are untrue. I retract those words & hereby apologizeless than a minute ago via HootSuite Favorite Retweet Replyfahmi_fadzil
    fahmi_fadzil


    And now, that the media has gotten its hands on the story, each subsequent apology is followed up with retweets; undoubtedly courtesy of his new fanbase. To wit, when the story broke, Fadzil had in the neighborhood of 4500 followers. That number now stands at 5,311. It wouldn’t be a bit surprising if that number eclipsed 6000 by the end of the day.

    In light of Fadzil’s gulag-like sentence, what are some other creative uses of Twitter you can think of beyond the norm? Clearly, the 140-character limit comes into play, but surely there are other uses besides promoting sex tapes from historically Black colleges or living vicariously through the pop culture elite. Let us know what you think in the comments section.