The Sochi Olympic Games have not been kind to the social media teams of Olympic Sponsors, at least in the west. Social media campaigns for both McDonald's and Coca-Cola have been essentially shut down by LGBT and human rights protestors. Contributing writer to Forbes, Avi Dan chronicled the woes they have faced saying, "For Coke And McDonald's, Ignoring The Power Of Social Media To Disrupt Means No Medals In Sochi."
Writing at Mashable about Sochi 2014 Olympic sponsors' social media "war rooms," T.L. Stanley suggested
"...sponsors such as Visa and McDonald’s also may consider logging time to answer their critics, who have hijacked the sponsors’ Olympics-themed Twitter hashtags to protest Russia’s anti-gay crackdown." There is yet another way human rights and LGBT activists can leverage an existing sponsor social media campaign to speak both words of protest, and words of support for LGBT equality in Russia and worldwide. This Achilles Heel of Russia's censorship has been hiding in plain site since McDonald's #CheersToSochi hashtag was first hijacked in January.And although McDonald's has abandoned the use of the #CheersToSochi hashtag, the Cheers To Sochi campaign website is still up and functioning and according to their press and social media posts, still a conduit to talk to Olympic athletes and teams who are right now behind the Putin's Lavender Iron Curtain.
Past the fold, how McDonald's Cheers To Sochi site can be used as a conduit to speak out on human and LGBT rights right into the Olympic Village.