KEVIN SMITH, SOUTHWEST AIR AND THE ABUSE OF SOCIAL POWER

By now the story of how Kevin Smith was yanked off a South West Airlines flight because he was "too fat" has gone mainstream, but like all good stories these days, this one had it's beginnings in the Twitterverse.

Now, I don't follow South West Airlines, OR Kevin Smith, but I happen to follow a couple of people who do, and I can tell you that the story didn't end when South West apologised, in 8 different tweets, a blog post, and a couple of personal phone calls. Nor did it end when Kevin Smith gave interviews and uploaded expletive rants about his experience.

You see, Kevin Smith has upwards of 1 million Twitter followers, who gleefully latched onto the story and ran with it for hours, in an effort to...well, what, exactly?

As Sonny Gill blogged this morning: "We EXPECT, DEMAND, WANT big and small from companies online – but when it comes to us, the consumer, we apparently get a free pass when it comes to RESPECT, UNDERSTANDING and RESPONSIBILITY online."

I'm not saying that Kevin Smith deserved to be humiliated at the hands of an airline, but South West did apologise, many times and in many different ways, for singling him out. I take bigger issue with the social power game that played out by Smith and his 1 million + fans, who continued to badger SWA, long after it was appropriate or even necessary, simply because they could.