Cringey: LG's social media account posted WHAT? | ZDNet

If you're a global handset maker and you have social media accounts like TikTok, perhaps it's worth wondering who's manning them. And what they're emitting.

Tech companies have a lot to think about right now.

Which can sometimes lead to no thinking at all.

Some will wonder whether this was the case on viewing an alleged attempt at marketing perpetrated by LG.

The Korean handset maker's Polish arm may have thought it was embracing the zeitgeist by having a TikTok channel and even posting excitingly short things to it.

One of its latest postings, however, led not only to -- this is an attempt at politeness -- embarrassment but also to the apparent renaming of the account.

You see, the @LGPolska TikTok promulgated a video -- created, reports Adweek, by a so-called prankster. I hope a description of the video will suffice, though you can easily find it on YouTube.

A young woman is walking up the stairs near some public building. She's wearing a skirt. A creepy old man is at the bottom of the stairs. He is taking photographs. For all the world, it seems as if he's trying to aim his camera up the woman's skirt.

She hears the shutter sound and walks back down. He lets her swipe right on his phone and she sees he's actually been taking selfies. She apologizes.

But as she walks back up, he turns toward us, swipes left instead of right, and reveals he's been taking upskirt photos all along.

LG for the win!

You see, the LG V60 ThinQ and other LG phones have that marvelous dual-screen feature that can fool people into thinking you're a decent human being.

I was going to throw in some social commentary here, but I think you may be there already. Let's cut to the dénouement.

The @LGPolska TikTok channel seems now to be called @LGPoland.

It's currently adorned with this message: "A recent video posted by LG Poland failed to follow the proper approval process for social media content. It did not live up to the standards and policy of LG Electronics and was immediately removed. We apologize for any offense this ill-conceived video may have caused. We will strive to prevent such an occurrence from happening again in the future."

I was tempted to throw in some social commentary here, complete with heartfelt, but accidental observations about the current Polish government, but I'll give that one a swerve too. In favor of this question: How does a marketing message, one that suggests sexual harassment is a very fine thing, appear on a global handset maker's official social media account?

Noticeably, LG Poland didn't claim it was hacked.

Could it be, instead, that such social media -- often aimed at Gen Z and even the newly formed Generation Alpha -- is left to members of those generations? Or at least to those who are, perhaps, a touch unworldly to be posting things to a global company's social media accounts?

LG rather compounded its haplessness by replying to one Twitterer that "the film hadn't been approved by LG Poland's marketing department and that's why it was removed from the brand channel."

And not because someone took one look and concluded it was sad, patent filth?

Oh, it's not as if such behavior is illegal in so many countries, I hear someone sniff. Please don't. It might cause me to descend to social commentary after all.

The central hemorrhoid here is that somehow this appeared on an official LG social media account. Which means someone officially let that happen.

I wonder if it was a man. Or, perhaps, a boy.