Share

The typhoonn Ondoy and Pepeng lead Meralco to take Twitter seriously.

A day before the typhoon Pepeng, a user of Twitter account @manilaelectric broadcasted brownout rumors. The said Twitter page is even linked to the website of Meralco.

Another account, @meralco, which is the exact corporate name of the company has already a handler.

There were a lot of misinformation happened due to the unauthentic social networking accounts.

It was after typhoon Ondoy when people are finding information source regarding the electricity termination and return. The account @manilaelectric gained Twitter followers by the minute.

Twitter user @manilaelectric, who said that “he was coordinating with Meralco offices… was not only creating panic but also misinformation,” Zaldarriaga stated.

These Twitter users pretended as Meralco official were found and contacted to disrupt their activity. @manilaelectric which uses the Meralco’s logo without authorization was scared off to refrain from using it.

On the other hand, @meralco was found to be handled by an American electricity price analyst based in Cagayan de Oro. The handler said he was using the account for social experiment.

Fortunately, Meralco was able to use the @meralco as their official Twitter account.

@meralco, which now has more than 10,000 followers, is currently handled by Kirk Campos of Meralco’s corporate communications department.

We could now tell Meralco our queries and suggestions to the said account without worry. Be sure to submit your service ID numbers to @meralco through direct messaging.

Share