Need help with a very sensitive complaint against a massive multinational!

[MrsRickman]

Ok, here goes.
Coca Cola are running a promo via their Dr Pepper brand just now on facebook. It is called 'status takeover' and involves the application putting an embarrassing or funny status on your FB page.
My 14 yo dd participated and I was HORRIFIED to log into FB and see that her status read - 'I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards'. For anyone who doesn't know what this means, please stay ignorant, for those who do, you can imagine how I felt. This was compounded later on when a quick search through dds internet history revealed she had tried to find out what it was for herself. Thankfully, our ISP has a wonderful child filter!!
So, after various emails and phonecalls to CocaCola marketing I have been offered (quite offensively) as way of compensation, a night in a hotel and theatre tickets for the West End. Fat lot of use to me, we live in Glasgow.
So, how do I proceed? ASA? I am absolutely fizzing with rage and disgust, and want a full apology and explanation. CocaCola are saying they use outside marketing teams for different brands and it's outside their jurisdiction. Help!?

They're all going to pile in now aren't they.

I'm going out anyway.

We're going to get loads of men on who style themselves on roman polanski, so please everyonbe don't let them upset you.

Anyone who thinks it is fine to talk about masturbation and hardcore porn with 14 yo children has got problems, frankly, and we don't need to engage with them.

Men who like the idea of talking about porn and masturbation with 14 yo children - why don't you take your case up with coke of the papers. Give them your names too, give thenm some quotes. Make your families proud.

"Christ are we now being taken over by IT Technicians?"

Replace IT Technicians with many other words and, is it still acceptable? Muslims? Gays? Black people? What's wrong with IT Technicians!

Well if you want to know about the internet how it works and how to police its content who better to ask?, like I said people are going crazy over this DR pepper thing but its nothing compared to the kind of things your children could be viewing on the internet, it like screaming shouting about some kid smoking cannabis on the street when there's 3 murders happening on the same street, again control your child's access to the internet because you CANNOT control the internet.

or the papers

IIIDrewIII I think the issue here is slightly different to what you say in that this 14 year old girl did not choose to search the internet for scatalogical pornography, she did not know what she was searching for. She searched purely because it was posted as her FB status and she did not know what it meant. Thus, the use of this phrase in a status update is actively encouraging any teenager who has not heard of this particular video to go and look for it, with no warning of its disturbing content.

lllDrewlll, no one here is trying to police the whole internet. OP had effective parental controls in place which prevented her DD from viewing the video when she attempted to google it.

However parents' attempts to encourage children to use the internet safely have been undermined by a promotion run by a huge household name.

Dr Pepper encouraged children to change their privacy setting on Facebook to public - not a safe or sensible way to protect children.

Dr Pepper did not enforce ny kind of parental consent for minors to participate in the competition.

No reasonable person (child or adult) would expect that participation in a Coca Cola brand promotion would result in references to scat pron.

I think we can just about understand that we can't control the internet, okay

This was a very specific complaint about something which should have come from a 'trusted' source, ie a major multinational promoting fizzy drinks to children.

oh FGS

You cannot justify a huge multinational doing this on the basis that there are worse things on the internet.

On that basis, anyone can do anything, as there is always going to be someone somewheer doing something a bit worse.

Cobblers.

It isn't about policing the internet. It is about holding a massive corporation responsible for the use of porn to advertise to children. The advertising standards authority would come down on this like a ton of bricks if it was on TV or a billboard. Don't know what powers they have inrelation to an internet campaign, but the principle is the same

If I'd watched that video as a fourteen-year-old, I'd have been terribly distressed.

Because it's torture-porn.

There are no words.

I also think people should stop feeding the trolls. If you ignore them, they'll jog on.

Cripes, not an IT professional?! I'm sure the doctors, scientists, lawyers, journalists and engineers on mumsnet are quaking in their boots at the very anticipation of your knowledge and insight.

OK, I'm bowing out now.

You know, the one thing which strikes me with all of this is just how completely uncool Coke now looks. How desperate to appear cool do you actually have to be to resort to this sort of campaign. Actually being cool is so much more subtle.

Trolls, the lot of them.

Oh yeah, a trusted source, a multi-national company selling sugary drinks packed with e numbers to children. Fuck me, if that's responsible in your eyes, god help us all.

ok then a new question, what damage do we think would really have happened to the girl if she had found the video on the internet, I imagine the same thing that happen to me, she would have felt ill and turned it off learning a valuable lesson that the internet although a wonderful educational tool is not necessary a safe place to play.

Should it have been allowed on facebook for children to enter well no probably not, but is there really any harm no not really, so is this all being blown out of proportion I would say yes.

Please go watch the video and you will see its not in the least bit sexual its just disgusting

Children over the age of 13 are allowed to join Facebook. The people involved in this advertising have encouraged FB members, who they knew could be children, to find out about '2 girls 1 cup'! How would you feel if you had a 13 year old who saw this Jimbo?

Letting children be exposed to extreme porn conditions them to think that these things are normal and makes it harder for them to enjoy normal sex when they are older. They become desensitised to the shock of extreme sex acts and become more likely to think that unhealthy sex acts are ok! Would you like your 13 year old (if you have one) to grow up thinking normal sex is too boring and to do themselves possible physical and emotional damage by doing things like '2 girls 1 cup' instead?

Surely putting this stuff in a place where there are children is illegal?

"Surely putting this stuff in a place where there are children is illegal?"

Well then, we need to make the internet an 18+ place don't we. Because these things exist, there is nothing you can do about it, and children do have access to it. The people who make this sort of film do it willingly, they probably got paid a lot of money for it. No one forced them into it. They made it because there are some people in the world who want it, otherwise it wouldn't exist. Personally, I can't see the appeal of eating someone elses shit, but i can accept that other people might want to see it, and i'm quite happy it exists. If it stops some sexually deranged person from forcing a woman into performing the acts in the video, great.

Response from one of the local radio stations:

Thanks for this; you make good points!
I've passed your email on to the
BBC national newsroom

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My message was critical of the 'glossed over' handling by Telegraph ans Guardian, stressed how if the presenter had made that status update, would possibly be answering questions from the Police right now.

I linked to the Metro, and to the Blog comparing "Status Update" with a Japanese "humiliation" type game show, and gave a copy of the original page from Lean Mean Fighting Machine website (where all references to "Status Update" now seem to have been wiped).

I also included link direct to Lauren Branston's posting, and how serious it must have been for Coca-Cola execs to discuss promotion and decide to "pull" it on a Sunday.

I may put up a web page with the full text of my e-mail later on. Let's see what the BBC HQ news team does first.