Time Warner Cable Systematically Looking To Shut Down Parodist's Accounts
from the not-a-huge-surprise dept
Well, this won't come as a huge surprise. Twice this week we've written about a pair of parodists who have been mocking Time Warner Cable and its customer service, first with a video in which they pretend to be TWC Customer Service reps asking people how they can make service worse for customers, and then involving a recording with a customer service rep who suggested that you weren't allowed to record your phone calls with TWC Customer service, even though they were recording you. The efforts were part of a parody campaign for a website called TWCCustomerService.com. For what it's worth, Time Warner has since said that there is no corporate policy saying that callers cannot record their calls, and that was merely a case of one rep overreacting.That said, Time Warner Cable has apparently decided that the duo at TWCCustomerService have gone way too far in their parody attempt and have been going after their various social media accounts one by one. Already killed are their YouTube account and a bunch of Twitter accounts. The latest is that TWC's legal department has approached GoDaddy, seeking to have the TWCCustomerService.com domain name taken away. According to Kevin Collier at DailyDot, the guys are actually Jason Selvig and Davram Stiefler of the comedy duo The Good Liars, and they have a history of doing similar types of pranks. In this case, TWC claims that the duo went too far in using the real name (and image) of Time Warner Cable's CEO, Glenn Britt.
As we noted in our first post about them, some might think that their website and efforts pushed some boundaries, since nowhere do they state directly that they're a parody account, but any human being with a few functioning brain cells should be able to tell within seconds that these guys clearly do not represent Time Warner Cable at all. I can understand why TWC decided to try to shut down the various accounts, but, in the end that's probably exactly what Selvig and Stiefler wanted, as it merely serves to call that much more attention to their antics.
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Filed Under: accounts, customer service, parody, social media, twc customer service
Companies: time warner cable
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I'd agree but this Time Warner we are talking about. Who knows?
Since it is GoDaddy, I'm betting they will cave.
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Mr. Warner? I've got a Mrs. Streisand on line 1...
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Considering we have political operatives and politicians who report the Onion as fact, the moron in a hurry defense needs an updated.
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I hope Time Warner dies. They need to stop buying our government and politicians into forcing competition out of the market and we need to force them to compete or to force them out of business. I would love to see them forced out of business by a very angry public.
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Plaintiffs who attempt to use the legal system to stifle speech should be more severely punished than defendants who defame or who impersonate another company. If it's a clear case of parody no one should even consider initiating a lawsuit because attempting to use our legal system to stifle speech should result in a quick and harsh punishment.
But, no, our legal system has effectively found ways to circumvent the constitution and to give big powerful organizations a means of stifling speech. Private commercial entities already have government established control over cableco and broadcasting spectra and they control the (political) content that gets delivered through these channels. This, in and of itself, is a government established restriction on speech and should be unconstitutional. If anyone criticizes a huge corporation or an influential organization via Youtube they have the resources to influence Youtube and others to remove the critical content. The legal system, and its disproportional penalty structure, is to blame and as such the laws, or the way they are applied now, should be considered unconstitutional (since the legal system is a function of government and it is ultimately the government that is limiting speech).
Abolish government established broadcasting spectra and cableco monopolies (for commercial use).
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It is more likely that the definition of Moron needs to be updated to include political operatives.
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There's this franchise here in Brazil called Spoletto that is some sort of fast-food that sells pasta (spaghetti, lasagna and so on). A group of comedians called "Porta dos Fundos" (Backdoor in English) did a video criticizing their customer service (which is incredibly funny, the employee throws food at the customer because she's slow to decide the ingredients she wants with the pasta she ordered). The franchise got in touch with the comedians and sponsored not only one but TWO sequels, onde making fun of the same employee undergoing some sort of training to control himself and another with some sort of making of where the actor performing as the employee starts mocking his crew because they want him to throw food at the customer again.
That's using Ms Streisand for your advantage. Time Warner is definitely doing it wrong. But it is to be expected, no?
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You're making a pretty big assumption here...
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The real verdict comes down the road. If they do this and don't change a thing they'll lose this goodwill they gained from the initiative (and maybe the comedians themselves will make fun of them again).
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