Is This a Complaint or a Crisis?

A faculty member shares their computer screen during class. The shared screen includes a look at the faculty member’s internet history. And, yes, it includes porn sites they visited. A member of the class shares about the incident on a social network. Then, it becomes a complaint.

This very possible (and possibly real) scenario is the perfect framing to talk a bit about if, when, and why a complaint can become a crisis. 

Crisis communication is among the most important parts of a higher education social manager’s work. Usually that comes as part of a team that’s responding to an unpreventable external crisis.

Even more difficult is the decision to turn something internal into a crisis, such as the scenario described above. Students in a classroom get a good look at a teacher’s porn predilection and someone shares about it. The social admin sees that post caught in their daily monitoring net. 

Now, they’ve got to decide what to do about it.

Confirmation Is Key

In the case of a teacher sharing a porn search, it’s essential to assume it’s true unless and until it’s confirmed that it’s not.

There’s plenty of misinformation and untruths shared in online communities. As content moderators and community managers higher education social admins are on the frontline of human content moderation. They need to decide which comments should be hidden, or which followers should be blocked or banned.

Can the institution even take these actions at all? As Cottica et. al wrote, a community manager’s work is “to shape the interaction network of its community in a way that helps its own ultimate goals.” 

The public sharing of personal internet activity is the very definition of a preventable, internal, unintentional crisis. There were ways to make sure it didn’t happen — it happened within closed walls — and they certainly (hopefully) didn’t mean to share that search.

Wade into the Fray

When seeing the post, the first thought may be a strong desire not to get involved.

No matter what, that’s the wrong thing to do.

There’s no better way to ensure that a crisis is on the horizon than doing nothing when the ‘this could be trouble’ instinct is ignored. 

The first step in any situation like this is to screenshot the post. Quickly. Right away. Don’t even scroll away to think about it. Someone for sure is screenshotting it out there, and the communications team in charge of maintaining institutional reputation should be among the first.

Now, there’s evidence in hand that the post was made. This leads to another decision branch. Is the post real? Did this incident happen? More importantly, what about the students who saw the information in a classroom, which is supposedly a safe space?

Was what they saw beyond embarrassing and crossed the border into harm. As Coombs observed, “It would be irresponsible to begin crisis communication by focusing on the organization’s reputation. To be ethical, crisis managers must begin their efforts by using communication to address the physical and psychological concerns of the victims.” 

With this in mind, the admin who has seen (and screenshotted) the post needs to conduct a sustained and determined monitoring campaign to see if there are any other mentions of this incident appearing on the original or other platforms.

If yes, then it’s one giant step closer to a reputational crisis, and things are rapidly getting outside the social admin pay scale.

Involve the Leadership

No matter what, more posts or not, the social admin should have by now forwarded the screenshot to their supervisor with an initial analysis and recommendation. “Saw this, it hasn’t been shared and can’t confirm it’s accurate, but you should know,” is all that’s needed as research begins.

Then, the supervisor relies on their knowledge and skills to decide who or if the other crisis team members should be called up quickly.

But if any of these other posts include a photo of the shared faculty member’s screen with the porn sites clearly shown then a much stronger recommendation is necessary: “Saw this, it’s getting out there, we need to act fast.” 

If those porn sites, or the content accessed there, is in some way problematic if it were to be publicly connected to a college teacher, there could be many long hours ahead for the crisis communications team.

If there are no additional posts, if no one has responded, or if there is no further evidence the incident has occurred, it’s not a crisis. Whew.

But it is still a complaint, and that’s still a matter for the community manager.

What If It Gets Worse?

The example shows how something can go from complaint to crisis very quickly. If more students were affected by what they saw, if the content was extremely offensive, or any number of factors, it could balloon into something harmful to the school’s reputation. For sure, the faculty member’s reputation is at risk. 

A social admin’s job is to know what’s going to happen. They need to know that two posts in a matter of minutes are not of reputational concern, but 10 posts in a matter of minutes borders on something bigger. If it gets to 20 posts on three different platforms with photos and ongoing tags of the school’s social accounts, it’s too late and the situation is beyond containment. 

The chart from Darzin’s Social Media Crisis Management provides a basic and oversimplified resource when encountering a complaining post, and it highlights the nuances of the community manager.

For the described example, it’s not a positive post, but where would it fit in this chart? Is it a troll, is it angry, or is it even confused?

This decision tree scales with the type and subject of the complaint. A member of the community could share an unflattering opinion about the university president. Students could raise issues of inequity when it comes to accessing crucial mental health resources. Or there could be political issues.

This is where the social admin’s instincts and experience come into play. They must be able to judge if the content of a post is something that poses, first, a threat of harm to a member of the community and, second, a threat to institutional reputation.

No matter the subject or nature of the content, a complaint becomes a crisis when you answer one question: “Is this something that is hurting our reputation?”