Galaxy accused of secretly tracking staff social media posts

Gaming operator Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG) is being accused of using illegal measures to track social media posts by their staff members after complaints over working conditions sparked by last year’s Typhoon Hato, South China Morning Post reported.

According to the report, GEG employees have been closely watched and targeted with “online manipulation” as part of a “secret contract” between GEG and YouFind, a Hong Kong-based digital marketing firm.

The South China Morning Post claimed to have had access to several internal company documents providing details and proof of an operation intended to weed out online comments that were detrimental to Galaxy’s image and to “create positive comments in Facebook groups, etc.” to “neutralize” any negativity.
As the report explains, the Hong Kong company was in charge of identifying and contradicting online posts capable of making the company look bad, as well as to “spread positive news about it,” making use of several online profiles to do so.

The “monitoring” and “seeding” operation – which Galaxy said adhered entirely to “standard global industry practice” – was, according to sources familiar with the matter, contractually agreed upon.

Such processes were established as a direct response to the online criticism Galaxy faced at that time from netizens after allegations surfaced online that the casino operator had asked its staff to volunteer to clean a swimming pool at its flagship resort, while many other organizations in the city had their staff cleaning the streets.

The Times reported earlier that the average Facebook review rating for the resort plummeted from 4.8 to 3.0 within a matter of hours, following the influx of more than 8,000 reviews with just one star, the lowest that the platform permits, and further dropping on the days that followed.

The poor reviews were accompanied by critical messages, some of which accused GEG of lacking compassion, while others alleged it had mistreated its employees.

Speaking to the SCMP, an online security and data privacy protection expert described the deal between GEG and YouFind as “the tip of a very big and very worrying iceberg.”

In Macau, the Office for Personal Data Protection has been “closely monitoring the situation and will follow up accordingly,” TDM reported yesterday.

In Hong Kong, the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data said both companies are obliged to follow Hong Kong privacy laws, even though the monitoring allegedly occurred in Macau.

Sources quoted by the media within the company and the gaming employee unions say that there was no agreement or information on the matter given to the staff members, although the GEG claims to have done “nothing wrong.”
In a statement, the company said it acted, “in accordance with standard global industry practice,” noting it had “appointed outsourcing suppliers to provide social media marketing services to GEG in order to measure and enhance the group’s online social media presence.”

Furthermore, GEG said it “has not and will not authorize any illegal use of social media,” adding that it will proactively fulfill its social responsibilities and strive to ensure that the conduct of its business complies with the laws of [Macau and Hong Kong]”.  RM