Chorus’ Gigatown competition has come under fire after a post on their Facebook page was seen as insensitive by members of the public. On 8 June, a head-on collision involving four teenagers occurred on Dunedin’s Southern Motorway. Gigatown Dunedin’s Facebook page posted a status on the day of the incident reading “Very sad to hear about another crash in #GigatownDunedin. Our thoughts are with the families of the people involved.” The post immediately prompted numerous replies from the public, with one response reading, “This is the most disrespectful thing I have ever seen.”
Critic spoke to Josh Jenkins, Gigatown Dunedin Project Manager, who said, “[the post] was made empathetically to show support for the families and friends affected.” He said it was “never intended for point scoring” and that the families affected in the crash did not report feeling offended.
Gigatown Dunedin, run via the Dunedin Digital Office, have taken the post down and issued an apology. “We understand that this may have been construed as a way of using the event to gain points. The post was made out of genuine feeling and concern for all those involved.” Jenkins said that as a result of the post, support for Gigatown Dunedin has actually increased.
Communications company Chorus launched the competition on 28 October 2013 and it is set to run for 12 months. The competition involves cities nationwide competing through social media sites by using the city’s hashtag and the relevant city scores points for each post. The city with the highest number of points will receive a $200,000 development fund and a 1Gpbs Internet service.
Over the first semester exam period, the group also hid envelopes of money around the University of Otago Central Library to attract more students to get involved with the social media frenzy. New clues to the whereabouts of the envelopes were released once a certain number of posts were made containing #Gigatowndunedin.
Almost immediately after the project was announced in early 2013, it became a mockery on Twitter, with the hashtag #gigashit being used. The recently emerged Internet Party has used the competition to their advantage by tweeting “Should NZers have to compete for better broadband ala #gigatown? We stand for better broadband from Cape Reinga to Bluff.”
At the time Critic went to print, Gigatown Dunedin was ranked third in the competition behind Gigatown Nelson and Gigatown Wanaka.
Gigatown bribes students and gets #insensitive
Gigatown Dunedin uses fatal crash to gain points
