Times of India hits a new low

International Mother Language Day turned out to be quite the nightmare for Times of India on social media as a supposed error on their part has dragged the publication’s Facebook page through the mud.

Celebrating International Mother Language Day, Times of India created a video to commemorate the occasion, spreading awareness around some of the oldest languages in India, but overlooked one of the oldest and widely spoken languages, Kannada.

It managed to spark an outrage among the Kannadiga population on social media who did not take kindly to the fact, and proceeded to express their displeasure through comments and posting bad reviews on Times of India’s page.

An incident that highlights an apparent double edged sword that exists on Facebook wherein the platform notifies your friends about your activity, which in this case was reviewing Times of India’s Facebook page.

Spreading like wildfire, the activity has lowered Times of India’s ratings to 1.9 stars, and Times of India took down the video from their website in order to exercise some damage control, but it appears to be futile.

Disgruntled Facebook users are now expressing their anger on unrelated posts in large numbers and are continuing to post bad reviews, which shows us how one mistake, however minor or major, can spell doom for a brand or business on social media.

The damage may or may not ever get undone, but it has managed to open a can of worms for the publication in a situation where the ‘crowds’ are turning on them.

One such incident in the past was faced by Yash Raj Films production, Gunday, a movie that wrongly portrayed facts regarding the 1971 War of Liberation as the Indo-Pak War of 1971, due to which large numbers of Bangladeshi internet users hijacked the film’s IMDb page, making it one of the lowest rated movies on the website. The page continues to be the lowest rated page on IMDB.

Well, if the same happens on Facebook, Times of India is in a lot more trouble than they are anticipating. It is important for the publication to think fast and think smart.