On this issue, I once summarized four points about the "delete" useless reasons:
1. the speed and scale of deletion, certainly compared to the re-release;
2. wait until you complete the deletion, the people who should be seen basically see it;
3. deleted
3. The very act of deletion can become a new source of crisis risk;
4. The resources invested in deletion could have been used for something more valuable.
Overall, these perspectives can be recognized by most PR people and decision makers - after all, these are the realities of the "everyone's a media" environment.
However, there are some who believe that this issue needs to be looked at from a different angle, that is, on the question of whether there is a need to delete "inaccurate" information, and whether it is legitimate and legal to do so. What makes it difficult for many PR people is that there is a huge difference between themselves and the decision makers of the enterprises on the definition of "inaccurate information". Often corporate decision-makers are indifferent to most of the truthful information mentioned in the media reports, but can always be very keen to find out one or two sentences, individual figures, or even some of the words "inaccurate", "not rigorous" logic, and for which they are furious, The company has been in the habit of instructing its public relations team to "deal with it". As for the way to deal with, the media is required to change the article, withdraw the article, apologize, send a lawyer's letter, threaten litigation and so on, to name a few.
In my opinion, it is this "cleanliness" that drives the gray space behind the "delete" type of crisis response. I don't know, any enterprise is not completely perfect, the media will not only report the excellent side of the enterprise. The problems that exist in the enterprise will not be covered or disappeared because the media report or not report, and even less because the media reported that the manuscript was deleted and was covered or disappeared.
What's worse, many corporate decision makers and PR people are overlooking the changes brought about by the popularization of algorithms in media content distribution. I liken this phenomenon to a "black hole of content", which is also newly added to the list of useless reasons for "deletion" as point 5: "What you've deleted may just be something that you can't 'see' anymore, and the Internet users can't see it. 'can not see, netizens can see, in fact, more. "That is to say, when corporate public relations exhausted a variety of legitimate or illegitimate means, pay a huge price to delete a so-called "negative", in fact, the reading habits of Internet users have been "memory", and thus more similar or related content will be pushed to their cell phone screens. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on a new pair of shoes or boots, and you'll be able to get your hands on a new pair of shoes or boots.
In addition to the "content black hole", I've also summarized three other "black holes", namely the "technology black hole", the "value black hole", and the "black hole". black hole" and "node black hole". The so-called "technical black holes" refer to the self-media space and various groups ...... that are beyond the reach of public opinion monitoring due to legal and ethical constraints. For example, a real estate company first "bought out" a book related to it, and then a link to an article triggered by the tweets of its outgoing executives could not be found. In fact, the electronic version of the book and the screenshots of the article were widely circulated in various groups. The "value black hole" mainly refers to the content of the values carried by the controversy, which is the semantic pluralism and the subjective expression of human **** the same role in the formation, it leads to different people on the same content may have diametrically opposed attitudes. For example, box horse fresh life discard expiration date food, some think this is a waste, while the other part of the people think it is the performance of the enterprise law-abiding responsible, different enterprises on a similar controversy attitude and reaction, is not the same, trying to take the deletion of the article to "extinguish" the voice of doubt is not a few. If you really do, I'm afraid that the result of the controversy will evolve into a concentrated "fire". As for the "node black hole", focusing on the different nodes within the enterprise and stakeholders to focus on the synergistic communication. For example, some days ago, an enterprise was reported by the media because some of its employees were taken away by the relevant departments to assist in the investigation. The enterprise considered the media report untrue, and wanted to request the media to withdraw the report by way of a statement and a communication letter. I expressed my firm opposition to the company and reminded them that while cooperating with the authorities in the investigation, it is more urgent and important to communicate with internal employees and their families, and secondly, to prepare a unified message in response to other media interviews. This example reflects the lack of public relations awareness within many companies, especially among decision makers.
Writing here, it is important to emphasize and address the point that no matter how many reasons we find to persuade decision-makers to give up the instruction to "delete the article" is not the goal, but to have further timely and accurate analysis of the crisis, research and coping strategies to decision-makers, and effectively help solve the PR crisis, is more important. Specific to the operational level of the method of choice and grasp the scale, it is clear that communication is the right way; and only communication, is the original value of public relations and long-term vitality.