Untraceable’s U.K. social network efforts deleted

A minor uproar has emerged over two social networking executions (sorry) that are part of the U.K. campaign for the Diane Lane thriller Untraceable.

Picture Production Company, an interactive marketing firm, setup a Facebook page for the movie that slowly reveals a scene of a gruesome torture as people become “fans” of the page. The idea mimics the film’s conceit that a madman is killing people as they visit his website, or, as Rex Sorgatz put it, “They’re killing people with website metrics.”

Similarly the firm used the video site Seesmic to show someone disappearing and then winding up captured and killed.

Both have been deleted by the various companies, with Facebook saying the page violated their policy not allowing “hateful, threatening or obscene” content. Someone at Seesmic actually called the police, not realizing the stunt was staged.

Dan Light, head of PPC (and whom I casually know through Twitter), said he fully expected both efforts to be deleted and so has alternate plans already in place. He also defended, at least a bit, the tactics, saying they were trying to get people’s attention by pushing the boundaries of online usage.

I’m of two minds on this. I think as long as age-appropriate safeguards were on the Facebook page it was alright, though I can see why Facebook itself felt otherwise. The Seesmic thing is a little more iffy, and I’m not sure how Dan had it labeled, but if full disclosure was made that it was a movie promotion then I think it was acceptable, though again I can see Seesmic’s point of view.

As with most things I tend to come down on the side of respecting the audience. The tactics surely got people’s attention but might have pushed the limits of what is or isn’t acceptable just a little too far for the corporate moderators or the community to fully embrace.