Flickr Founder Apologizes over Censorship

1.) Ignore the problem, eg. Intel with the Pentium bug.

2.) Blame the user, eg. most customer service reps nowadays.

Stewart didn't do either of these - he took full responsiblility, explained why the action was taken (no matter how misguided), and enacted policies to prevent it from happening again. And you can see that the result is even more customer loyalty.

We had several of these crises situations when I was at FictionAlley. They're much more difficult to handle than they seem from the outside, because there are always considerations that your users don't see (legal issues, other constituencies, privacy considerations). Users really appreciate you being honest with them, though, and if you make a good-faith effort to communicate what you can without defensiveness, you'll usually get their understanding if not their support.

Also, a random observation - these crises always seem to occur when the people in charge are away. I remember having one erupt right after my laptop had died and having to deal with it all from the university computer labs, and then another blew up while the site owner was returning from her brother-in-law's funeral.