Corporate Efforts to Deploy or Respond to Social Media Warfare Strategies

Corporations, especially large ones, are in a constant state of conflict. Social media warfare is intensifying that conflict. Competition is stiff between corporations, and globalization has opened more avenues for competition and conflict. Corporations also face tax challenges, and as they relocate from country to country they find that their new home may turn into less of a tax haven than expected. On the one hand, regulators and lawmakers work to hold corporations accountable for their many sins; on the other hand, they take campaign contributions from industry groups in exchange for less regulation and the freedom to be corrupt. Corporations have polluted the environment, exploited workers, sold faulty and dangerous products, and alienated social cause groups who feel corporations should be held responsible for the damage they have done. The larger the corporation, the more lawsuits they face every year. This chapter examines how corporations use social media warfare tactics and, in turn, have those tactics used against them.