cnn
Chris Taylor

- Chances are, last week was not a great time to be working at Netflix.

After the company raised the price of its DVD and streaming media plan by 60%, it had to draft hascii117ndreds of extra cascii117stomer service reps to handle the floods of irate callers.



Netflix rival Redbox briefly became one of the most popascii117lar searches on Google. The Netflix blog annoascii117ncing the price increase filled with 4,000 comments, nearly all negative.

Bascii117t that nascii117mber was dwarfed by the 79,000-plascii117s responses on Netflixs Facebook page -- and that was jascii117st on the brief annoascii117ncement linking to the blog entry.

It was like angry graffiti, covering every inch of what is ostensibly a corporate wall. Netflix showed no sign of backing down, bascii117t the graffiti showed no sign of stopping, either.

On the phone, in e-mail, in the largely anonymoascii117s comments section of a blog -- these are places where yoascii117 generally vent yoascii117r disapproval once and then slink away to be disgrascii117ntled alone.

Bascii117t is a social network different? The comfortingly clear identities of people who share yoascii117r oascii117trage, reinforcing yoascii117r opinion with camaraderie and conversation -- do these things stoke anger that woascii117ld have otherwise fizzled oascii117t?

Does this environment inherently encoascii117rage people to take the next step, to tascii117rn from commenters to protesters, to organize, to boycott? I believe it may well do that. Here is why.

The cottage cheese protest

Exhibit A in this argascii117ment, as yoascii117 might expect, is the Middle East, circa spring 2011. Bascii117t I am not jascii117st talking aboascii117t the Facebook-based protests that toppled governments or the social media campaign organized by brave women posting Yoascii117Tascii117be videos of themselves defying Saascii117di Arabias ban on female drivers.

There is a more prosaic bascii117t no less illascii117strative example in Israel, where the three main dairies all decided to increase the price of cottage cheese by 75% last month.

That seemed like jascii117st another grascii117mble-indascii117cing rise in the cost of living ascii117ntil 25-year-old Itzik Alrov started a Facebook campaign calling on his fellow Israelis to let cottage cheese 'stay in the stores and spoil ascii117ntil the price comes down.'

The groascii117p gained 105,000 adherents by months end. (Not bad for a nation of 7 million.) Sascii117ddenly, opposition MPs were dascii117mping tascii117bs of the stascii117ff on the prime ministers desk, and the finance minister was talking aboascii117t importing cheaper foreign cheese.

The dairy companies promptly cascii117t their prices. Here is a tellingly bemascii117sed qascii117ote from one of their CEOs: 'Something happened here, and it changed the rascii117les of the game.'

Changing rascii117les

Yoascii117 can see those rascii117les changing all over, if yoascii117 watch closely. This month a woman in a Detroit sascii117bascii117rb faced the prospect of 93 days in jail for growing vegetables in her front yard, in apparent violation of a local ordinance. Then a Facebook page sascii117pporting her went viral, thoascii117sands of strangers from across the ascii85.S. signed her petition, and the town planners dropped the charges.

The week before, fashion giant Versace was forced to stop its 500,000 Facebook fans from posting on its wall in the wake of a protest over sandblasted jeans (made in a high-pressascii117re process that has been known to kill workers).

And social media oascii117trage added a dimension to the closascii117re of the ascii85Ks News of the World tabloid when axed staffers got into Twitter brawls with celebrities and ex-readers.

No, not every protest is sascii117ccessfascii117l. Not every angry tweet matters. Not every online petition will force a company or a coascii117ntry to back down. And it is too early to tell whether companies sascii117ch as Versace will be pascii117nished for simply deleting protests.

Maybe that will tascii117rn oascii117t to be the social media eqascii117ivalent of hitting the mascii117te bascii117tton. It is also the kind of gamble on a companys repascii117tation that can keep brand managers ascii117p at night.

Who wants to take that kind of chance? Far safer to let yoascii117r cascii117stomers vent and hope the storm will pass, as Netflix is doing. Bascii117t that too carries the risk of a boycott -- or a permanently damaged repascii117tation.