Students Stage Virtual Protest on Facebook
College is an awfully expensive time, leaving most graduating students completely broke or, more likely, buried under reams of college loan books. For those who don't find a job immediately after graduation, things get worse as loan payments quickly come due.
At least students who banked with Hong Kong-based HSBC could always count on the bank's free overdraft protection on checking accounts -- that is, until the bank recently announced that the program was slated for termination.
Fortunately, we no longer live in a time when "writing a letter" is your only recourse in a situation such as this. When students learned of HSBC's plans, they massed together on Facebook in an interesting sort of virtual protest -- a protest that led to the bank axing the interest fees and keeping the program in place.
This is reminiscent of the trashing Wal-Mart recently took when it created its own Facebook group. However the negative feedback there was directed toward the company's overall business practices, something Wal-Mart is unlikely to change based on a few thousand posts on a Web site (since it's those very practices that have enabled it to stay profitable). The HSBC protest, on the other hand, was more focused on that single issue of interest on overdrafts, organized by the National Union of Students (NUS). The group set up a group on Facebook to keep in touch with students and organize the protest. NUS Vice President Wes Streeting indicated that it was Facebook that enabled them to get the program re-instated, saying: "There can be no doubt that using Facebook made the world of difference to our campaign."
It just goes to show that today's youth is, after all, still willing to stand up for something they believe in ... so long as it doesn't require they actually stand up.
From BBC News
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
william camry and family said 4:18PM on 4-15-2008
about the virtual online game vmk closing. what disney does not realize is how much money they were making off that game. heres a little hint for you . pins and movies were purchased for people with codes on them that were used by thousands for vmk. people spend millions in total going to disney parks to do the quests to collect cards with codes on them to use for vmk. if disney only knew how much money they are about to lose with a nation wide boycott of all disney materials and going to parks. the people have the power to stop spending money to teach disney a lesson. we spend real money to play vmk and now you seem to shut it down and dont offer any kind of compensation to people for the money they have spent. just keep vmk open and continue to make millions like you have already. if you think i am wrong about this get your facts first the numbers are incredible. power to the people
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