Should Apple bear the blame for the celebrity nude photo scandals?

Over the weekend, the internet was ablaze with nude photos of several A-list celebrities after an alleged hacker broke into Apple’s iCloud service.In a statement to Recode yesterday, Apple said that it was “actively investigating” the violation of several of its iCloud accounts which led to videos and photos of celebrities released online.“We take user privacy very seriously and are actively investigating this report,” Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said.Marketing has also reached out to Apple for a statement.While hacking of a brand accounts is not something new with major brands such as Burger King and Jeep having recently fallen prey, what might be more sensitive in this incident is that private lives of celebrities which were exposed. Already, celebrities such as Kirsten Dunst have come out to publicly criticise Apple on social media platform Twitter. With a strong fan following of over 326K, this could quite easy put Apple in a negative light when it comes to public perception.Her tweet criticising the brand, posted merely six hours ago has already had over 9.4k retweets and 9k favourites.Many have followed suit:  According to Tarun Deo, managing director of Golin, general security on the internet is the big issue that all companies including Apple need to take seriously.Such a tweet would certainly draw attention to Apple, said Deo but the brand has been quick to respond which is a good first step.“It is now up to Apple to reassure not only Dunst’s fans but their stakeholders in general that it is addressing the problem in the best way it can. The new normal is issues like the one Apple is facing in this instance and this will not be an isolated case.”Jeremy Seow, managing director of Zeno added that what Apple now needs to do is concentrate on disseminating the right information to the right people including stake holders.While there are various ways to craft the right message when a crisis hits, how communication breakdowns sometimes happen is during the dissemination of the information. The response in such an instance needs to move as fast as the conversation takes place globally. The longer it takes to get the information and truth out, the bigger the impact on consumer trust.According to global reports, among the celebrities whose pictures were allegedly stolen and posted online were Avril Lavigne, Amber Heard, Hillary Duff, Jenny McCarthy, Hayden Pannettiere and others.