Earlier this week, Swedish new radio P3 News, reported that gym chain Friskis & Svettis introduced a "selfie ban" in the changing rooms at their gym in Stockholm .
The decision came about because people were taking pictures and publishing in social networks, and other folks who were unfortunately unclothed in the background then inadvertently ended up on the picture online. To protect involuntary models from accidentally ending up on photos in social media so the chain has now introduced a policy prohibiting any photography from the the locker rooms.
Problems arose however when the headliner at P3 News published the title "Selfies banned from Friskis & Svettis" which of course is not true. It is still allowed to take photos at the gym, just not in the locker room .
The news spread quickly on Twitter, and other news agenvies picked it up and ran the same error in the title. Even though the article itself set everything straight in the body, all to many people decided to just share and retweet the erroneous headline. The pictures below are from Swedens major news agencies; P3 News , DN, Metro and SVT.
Friskis & Svettis now have a small crisis on their throats, something they need to handle and explain quickly. I have already seen customers who want to refund their entire memberships just because they believe that the ban is just crazy. I myslef understand them, however I also wished they would have read the entire story, because I also understand and agree with Friskis & Svettis.
The news spread quickly on Twitter, and other news agenvies picked it up and ran the same error in the title. Even though the article itself set everything straight in the body, all to many people decided to just share and retweet the erroneous headline. The pictures below are from Swedens major news agencies; P3 News , DN, Metro and SVT.
Friskis & Svettis now have a small crisis on their throats, something they need to handle and explain quickly. I have already seen customers who want to refund their entire memberships just because they believe that the ban is just crazy. I myslef understand them, however I also wished they would have read the entire story, because I also understand and agree with Friskis & Svettis.
When you see how fast a headline escalates in the media, and especially in social media, even though it is completely faulty and disproven in the article itself, it goes to show how damaging an uncontrolled spread like this really can be. I dont know how much revenue Friskis & Svettis has lost over this, but my guess is that it sure have dented their results, at least in their customer service department.
As of right now Friskis & Svettis has yet to issue an explanation.
It's funny how using or leaving out one word can make a huge difference.
SvaraRadera