Everything else is a matter of individual consideration in the face of the specific situation, and here you should proceed in an orderly and considered manner. Even if you cannot afford to hesitate for long in these digital times, hasty action is at least as damaging.
Someone threatened me with a shitstorm. What do I do now?
"Then I'll just start a shitstorm!" is the new "Then I'll just take it to the press!" That is at least what reports from participants in my workshops suggest. Since the phenomenon of shitstorms has reached the mass media, I have been getting calls here in my office from relatively desperate entrepreneurs who have been threatened with a shitstorm because something isn't right. Now, the danger of communication crises should by no means be played down or even dismissed. But often people fear too much in one area, while in another they don't even recognize the possible risks.
Anyone who knows how difficult it is to generate visibility facebook data and media attention also knows that not everyone can easily create a shitstorm or make a big splash in the media. After all, not every angry person is an influencer with a wide reach. On the other hand, many a company has already put off a supposedly small customer who then suddenly had a large interest group behind them.
So panicking is just as pointless as trivializing the situation. It has always been worthwhile, and now more than ever, to maintain respectful communication and deal with criticism constructively.
One of the very few truly meaningful scientific works on the topic of shitstorms is the study cited above. I conducted a detailed interview with the authors, which you can find here.