[bloogsy]

"Social media" make it seems like some separate entity, it's still public sentiment. You have also bought into the framing the company has used to make itself seem like the victim by referring to "mobs" having power, rather than a company and CEO facing backlash from the public finding out about its terrible culture behind the scenes, as it rightly should.

[barry-cotter]

> "Social media" make it seems like some separate entity, it's still public sentiment.

If your target market is American teenage boys and some Qatari old men really, really hate you their feelings are public sentiment too but you shouldn’t care in the slightest. Likewise what journalists think should be irrelevant compared to what customers think.

[Dirlewanger]

It's often not "public sentiment", it's often a handful of nobodies on Twitter that the media deliberately seeks out to push a narrative. The worst part is that the narrative-pushing often isn't insidious, they just want page views.

[macspoofing]

> it's still public sentiment.

I think the point is that it isn't a 'public sentiment'. Public sentiment would imply some sort of representative sample. Twitter people engaging in Twitter mob behaviour is not representative. It's like calling the Campus students freakouts when some conservative speaker visit, as 'public sentiment'.

>You have also bought into the framing the company has used to make itself seem like the victim by referring to "mobs" having power,

That's exactly what it was. It wasn't a balanced view on this CEO or company culture. It wasn't even that bad. I remember reading the Verge article, and thinking "Meh". There was one circumstance when the team was asked to work New Years Day in return for getting a month off. Everyone would make that choice. But OK, Korey clear set high expectations and created a culture where working a high number of hours was encouraged - is that bad? "Meh". It's an interesting case study but a investigative report from the The Verge is overkill.

And this is another aspect to this story, this mob behaviour was triggered by 'The Verge', itself a billion-dollar conglomerate owned in part by NBCUniversal, another global media conglomorate. 'Public Sentiment' indeed.