Twitter can be dangerous
Twitter is a great social tool which can be used to expand one”s influence to areas that were once out of reach. But what about the flip side of this scenario? What happens when nefarious (yes, it”s a word. I didn”t make it up) information starts spreading about you on Twitter? How would you react if skeletons in your closet suddenly showed up and said “Hi”?
This is currently happening to Arleen Anderson AKA @AlohaArleen. In the past few days a storm of controversy has been brewing on Twitter about her past, with many people suddenly starting to voice their complaints about Arleen.
Some of the statements coming forward about Arleen Anderson are a felony conviction for stealing from the Special Olympics, passing bad checks, defaulting on a loan, being a bad renter, and numerous civil suits against her. All in all, these claims easily destroy a person who lives a public lifestyle.
Now I”m not going to debate the merits of any of these claims or documents, I”ll leave that up to someone else. But I have been following the Twitter stream over the past two days regarding this, curious to see how it all plays out.
One thing I can say for certain though is that Twitter can ruin your reputation. This has become quite apparent in the above scenario. Public accusations of wrong doing have been leveled at Arleen Anderson, and so far she has been surprisingly quiet about it. She has pretty much chosen not to engage with the other people on Twitter making these claims and has so far refused to publicly respond to any of these allegations.
As damaging as these claims are, I find it to be social media suicide to allow a mountain of negativity to accumulate without even bothering to offer some form of a response. You can”t expect to make your livelihood through the use of social media when such damning information is being put forward about you.
The tough part about all this situation is that it doesn’t matter so much whether everything being stated about Arleen Anderson is true or not; the court of public opinion doesn’t always base their stance on facts. Reputation is everything in social media, and continued silence just increases the damage caused to it.
Have you been following this so-called AlohaArleen scandal? What are your thoughts on how Twitter affects your social media reputation?
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Mahalo, great job and analysis, the truly sad part is that everyone of the clams ARE true and that’s why she hasn’t responded.
I admit that I, too, have seen this stuff about Arleen. I have no idea whether any of it is true or not. I’m trying to keep an open mind but posting photocopies of actual bounced rent checks, pictures of the way she apparently trashed the apartment, photocopies of court documents, etc., lead me to believe that there may or may not be fire but there sure is a heck of a lot of smoke.
My big question is (and I swear that I don’t mean this in any mean way) who the heck is Arleen Anderson? I’ve googled her and basically all I get is the fact that she is a Twitter addict who admitedly tweets approximately 50 times a day as AlohaArleen. I see a couple of couple of videos of her on the Big Island although I don’t know why she’s there. My friend Andy Bumatai had her on his show and refersed to her as a “social media superstar,” but then was apparently later taken by her for (allegedly) $4,000 and is (allegedly) pursuing legal action against her.
While I agree that Twitter can be wildly misused and there seems to be no accountability – it also has the potential of bringing to light some serious misdeeds and possibly protect future victims. This is a tough call but if even 25% of the stuff that is being printed about Arleen is true, then I fear that Twitter didn’t ruin Arleen’s reputation – Arleen did.
New media – new problems! There are no winners in this one.
Speaking of “awaiting moderation,” I now see that I have misspelled Arleen’s name throughout my entire comment. Is that something that can be fixed? I can’t seem to erase it or edit it from my end. Sorry about that.
Kay
I edited your comment for you, and the only thing I touched was the spelling of Arleen’s name.
Sorry about the “awaiting moderation” thing…. before I wiped this blog out and started over I received a lot of spam commenting so I then changed the settings to where all comments are moderated.
Thanks for the write up and the links.
This lady needs to be stopped and it appears Izeafest has now officially pulled her as a speaker.
I saw the quick post that Ted Murphy put up on the Izeafest site indicating that Arleen would no longer be joining them for the Twitter session http://izea.com/izeafest-change-speakers/
If their decision to remove her from the lineup was brought on by all these current allegations, I wonder how long they’ll have her being a mini-spokesperson for “Sponsored Tweets”.
Ive been watching both sides of this as well, and find Arleens silence rather telling. She has almost ceased to tweet, about this or anything. The court of public opinion is gonna take this as an admission of guilt, even if the claims are false.
I do not personally know Arleen or those claiming they lost money…but if you dont know someone-as well as not knowing anything about their past….why are you giving ANY money to them?
There is truly no “get rich quick” scheme out there that works. It is all about hard work – period. AND – this also goes to show how you need to do a background check when giving substancial amounts of money OR renting space to anyone.
I can only imagine whats going on in Hawaii and with her fiance….I know the twitter world is seein it.
You’re quite correct about how silence translates into an admission of guilt for many people. It’s hard to view her as a victim of trumped up accusations when it appears she has fled Twitter since this started.
I am not only following this scandal I am the one who started the whole thing. Andy, Bruce and Damon helped me get started then it just rolled on from there. I can say that the information on the $7500 Grand Theft from the Special Olympics and my Judgment for $20k+ plus interest (which is now over $32k) from the state of SD is 100% true. I sat in the courtroom when her proceedings took place March 8, 2004. I would say the other checks from HI are legit too. I’m no handwriting expert but the way she makes her A is pretty convincing on all the checks. The remainder of her signature shows a similarity as well. Depends on how fast she signs on how readable it is. I can also vouch for the fact she is not a very good housekeeper, although the photos shown are worse than I saw, she was not twittering all day then either.
Arleen Brenda (Long) Anderson was born in 1960 (4-12) and grew up in Dixon, CA. Her father and her half brother are MD’s. Her father was married many times and she has a full brother and sister and at least 3 other siblings . She has a degree from a college around Santa Cruz and purchased a home there with her mother’s help. This is the home she used to get me to loan her the $20K. She married poor Mr. Anderson and they had one daughter. Their marriage lasted about 10 years. They had a company called Top Communications, I believe, which had something to do with phone systems and installations. She supposedly sold that in 1999 and moved to South Dakota which is where I come into the picture. We were just starting to date when she purchased a house on a contract for deed. She was the Black Hills Director for the Special Olympics from around 2001 to 2003. This position pays little or nothing. She helped organize a blood marrow drive for a gal named Stevie and had a good turnout. I signed up and was later found to be a match for someone so even as many bad things that she has done she did do some good things also. She did some fund raising on the Internet which is where I come in with the loan I made her in ’02. She started a fundraiser called SOKEM which stood for Support Our Kids Education Management I believe. We were broke up when she was arrested for Grand Theft here. I sympathized with her and did not believe that she was guilty then and got sucked back in but my friends introduced me in ’03 to the lady I have been happily married to since ’04 and I finally broke free from her or had I. She has not made any attempt to pay me since Feb 10, ’03. Had she paid or been paying I would not have got a Judgment, kept tabs on her whereabouts or searched for her on the Web and she would have kept her devious ways up for who knows how much longer.
After emailing her she called back right away and said she was coming to SD and would pay me off. She said call her in a few weeks and we could talk about it. I knew she was full of herself so when I tried to call her # was disconnected and her email box was full. Tried 2 or 3 times to email and gave up. Followed her tweets and saw Andy Bumatai had tried to contact her about a Tax ID and money owed. That got my attention so I found his email and emailed him and if you have been following on twitter you know the rest and that ONE person can make a difference. You just have to make the first move. She thought I and everyone else she’s done wrong would just go away but thanks to Twitter, not only did we not go away, we are forming a strong community on Twitter. I am unable to name everyone because hundreds or thousands of people have helped spread the word. You know who you are and I thank you all. Hope this helps Kay and any others to know more about AA. Thanks again, R_A_K_
Thanks for your support and for posting this info on your blog. Many people have joined the crusade for justice and helped me tremendously in this effort. With everyone’s efforts NO Aloha (@alohaarleen) will be exposed for the many scams she has pulled. I can’t thank all of you enough. Best regards, Roger.
Your welcome! I’m not invested in this story like you and others are, but I think it’s important to make people aware of the possible “dark side of social media” scenarios that may be out there.
I know what you mean.
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Coyote Lee