Until institutions learn to simply ignore Twitter backlashes, they will continue doing foolish and unadvisable things in response to those backlashes.
Institutions need to learn that Twitter backlashes are ephemeral. The news cycle moves on very very quickly -- tomorrow, the Twitter people will be outraged about a different thing. And there are way too many outrages to boycott, so the danger of real boycotts is low.
I mean, the New York Times gets hit with a Twitter backlash every week. And yet, their subscribers and revenue are looking great.
9 times out of 10, I think an institution's best move -- from its own self-interested perspective, not in terms of what's good for society -- is to look down on Twitter with Olympian detachment and treat it as an only-occasionally-relevant comments section.
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