In today’s world if you are going to market yourself, and expand brand reach through social media you better be willing to put up with some criticism. Some brands get the whole “Transparency” thing, others don’t. The latest example of this is Versace.

Versace has pulled posting functionality from their official Facebook page. A page with more than 500,000 fans. Posting functionality was pulled after they began to receive wall posts openly criticizing the use of manual laborers to sand blast their jeans. A practice preformed in sweat shops, and conditions that are openly harmful to their labor force.

What is really pretty interesting about this is, that this kind of reaction is that it isn’t about just shutting down or moderating fans bickering or complaining about products or styles. It’s about shutting down any criticism of the company or brand as a whole. Rather than step up and try to manage what rapidly became a PR nightmare, they took the easy way out and shut down fan interaction with the brand. The only problem is, this kind of action tends to add fuel to the fire, rather than extinguish the flames.