Reputation Attacks

Although most people are now aware of the potential for fake and toxic content online, there are still large numbers of people who give credibility to the information available.

Between the numerous social media platforms and websites we interact with and post to daily, internet users unconsciously create a 'digital file' of information such as images, likes and dislikes, and check-ins that reveal insights into our personal lives. This can include our interests, network of contacts, educational background, and much more.

Through our online activity, the creation of our own unique 'digital footprint' can potentially reveal our recent web history and interactions with others to anyone with access to the internet. This includes friends, potential business contacts, and even love interests.

As our lives continue to become increasingly digital, we should be cognizant of how we are actively contributing to our own digital footprint and the various ways these online activities can come back to harm us in the form of reputation attacks.

Personal attacks: Attacks on personal reputations can include revenge porn, character assassination, and personal defamation.

Professional attacks: Reputation attacks on individuals and small business interests can include fabricated employment ratings, fake professional reviews, and toxic professional harassment.

Corporate attacks: Attacks on corporations and multinational companies can include organized viral activism, organized digital boycotts, hired hackers and trolls, and media harassment.

Unfortunately, there are numerous ways our reputations can be impacted, both on a personal level and in a professional context. It is not always easy to avoid such incidents, but being aware of them can help you address each unique circumstance and take appropriate action.

Below, we highlight an example of a corporate attack that had a profound impact on a multinational company's brand reputation:

Case Study: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, also known as the "BP oil spill," began in April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven people were killed in what many consider to be the largest marine oil spill in history. After several attempts to contain the flow of the spill, the well was eventually sealed in September of that year. The US government estimated at the time that the total spill was approximately 4.9 million barrels.

During the crisis, when people searched Twitter for the terms "BP" and "public relations," the top result was "@BPGlobalPR." Founded in 2010, the account grew to more than 175,000 followers; the company's official Twitter account, in contrast, only had 15,000 followers.

@BPGlobalPR's bio section contained the following: "This page exists to get BP's message and mission out into the Twitterverse!"

What we did not mention is that @BPGlobalPR was a parody account created to spoof the company's public relations efforts after the spill. BP initially wanted to shut down the account, but Twitter's policy at the time of the disaster allowed for parody, commentary, and fan accounts to be created, as long as the accounts themselves did not mislead users by claiming to be affiliated with the account subject (the brand itself).

BP, in response to the disaster, chose to leverage social media platforms such as Facebook, its verified Twitter account, and YouTube to spread its message and try to contain the damage to its brand reputation. However, BP soon learned how social media can shape and control a company's message during a crisis. By the time BP reacted, the fake account had gone viral and had been picked up by news outlets.

The Consequences of Corporate Reputation Attacks

Attacks can have a profound, long-lasting impact on a company, whether it is a small business or a large corporation. This can have wide implications, as you are about to understand.

Statistically, online corporate attacks against companies, their products, and/or executives and officers account for damages in the billions of dollars annually. The internet has leveled the playing field between large corporations and individual activists. In full-scale attacks against large institutions, some antagonists are truthful, but not all of them are.

Those who take on companies are typically very emotional and aim to foster the larger social community to side with their point of view by leveraging reputation-centric platforms such as Yelp, Amazon reviews, and other scoring websites tied to service or product delivery. Additionally, some may launch corporate attacks to the advantage of the company's competitors and earn a profit from such attacks.

According to Harvard Business Review, in the business economy, 70% to 80% of a company's market value comes from intangible assets such as brand equity, intellectual capital, and goodwill. Damages to its reputation lead to an inability to attract top talent, and costly media and press campaigns are undertaken to try and undo the damage (often not successfully).

For companies that undergo reputation attacks, the hard costs can range from $5,000 to repair an executive's online reputation to $20,000 to drastically change the content seen when a company is searched online. Note: This range is for monthly costs and can far exceed this, depending on the scale of the attacks.

In recent years, the costs of corporate attacks have only gone up as their sophistication and the increasing number of platforms available have made them much more difficult to address.

How to Manage Your Corporate Reputation

There are numerous ways businesses of all sizes can manage their corporate reputation and respond appropriately to different challenges:

• While responses can vary based on the size of a company and what (or who) the exact target is, one of the first mechanisms is to not panic and know your rights. At one time or another, it is estimated that every business is plagued by a bad review (or two). The angriest of customers can usually be appeased when they are not ignored and are directly engaged with via the platform where they launched their attack (e.g., Yelp, Twitter, or Facebook).
• When working to counter a corporate reputation attack, especially on social media or a ratings platform, companies should act quickly. In thinking back to the PR nightmare for BP, one of the main points of fodder for social media activists was that BP was not acting quickly enough to contain the spill. Instead, the company appeared to be in a tug-of-war over its messaging, which included how to control the parody account, @BPGlobalPR.
• Companies should have a communications firm "on standby" in the event that an attack ever happens. Alternatively, when someone within the company is responsible for this, the overall communications strategy should include a crisis management response. How well the company communicates with or engages with those outraged also matters. Sometimes, especially with poor restaurant reviews, for example, a simple apology and offer can help curb additional negative comments.
• Finally, as social media continues to dominate our personal lives on a daily basis, companies must become comfortable with it before crises can occur. Some companies will hire social media and/or online content managers who are skilled in negative reputation attacks. For smaller companies, these services can also be outsourced to firms that monitor and help develop brand content. When in doubt, if a person or account is not following a social media site's policies, they should be reported.

This case study highlights how quickly the internet can spread the wrong kind of message about a brand and the relative ease with which these challenges can arise in our ever-more interconnected world. As the sophistication and complexity of corporate attacks evolve, businesses must develop an awareness of how these attacks can occur so that they can be best prepared.

Case Study – Justin Bieber Forced to Shut down Instagram

In August 2016, worldwide music icon Justin Bieber felt forced to close his personal Instagram account following a reaction from his own fans (often dubbed "Beliebers"). After Justin posted photos of himself with a new girlfriend, his fan base quickly reacted with negative comments and the snake emoji, accusing him of cheating. Justin's last Instagram post was captioned:

"I'm going to make my Instagram private if you guys don't stop the hate. This is getting out of hand. If you guys are really fans, you wouldn't be so mean to people I like."

Some of the comment exchanges became heated and escalated, involving his ex-girlfriend, Selena Gomez.

Beliebers then took to Twitter, declaring they were not only unfollowing Justin on Instagram but that he had insulted his devoted fan base, who had remained loyal throughout the singer's tumultuous past, including his 2014 arrest. His fans began to comment and retweet their past photos with Justin Bieber, using the hashtag "#RIPBeliebers," which trended for over a day.

Justin closed his account for roughly two weeks before reopening it in late August of that year, noticeably being more selective about his photo choices.

The Consequences of Personal Reputation Attacks

Armed with the power of anonymity, personal attacks are often hateful and may include private, personal information that you would want to protect. These attacks are often fueled by a difference in views, either political, societal, or religious. Attackers use these ideals as justification for posting harassing comments.

This kind of reputation attack is similar to what cyberbullying individuals experience online. Personal attacks lead an individual to question their decisions, making them feel isolated from their communities and causing self-doubt that, down the line, can lead to symptoms of cyberbullying.

The cost of protecting or recovering one's personal reputation is expensive, depending on the medium the attacker uses (e.g., blog, website, social media). Online reputation management (ORM) services can range from $3,000 to $10,000 a month. This includes negotiating the removal of damaging content and ongoing monitoring to ensure the content does not return or is reposted.

How to Protect Your Personal Reputation Online

Social media users should be aware of the tools and mechanisms available to them to report online harassment. Most site administrators are wary of hosting content that is deemed racist, violent, or sexist, and it is likely that the personal attack you are experiencing already violates the rules of the community that it appears in. Removing it may be as easy as using the 'report' function that is already standard on many online platforms and communities.

For popular social media sites, users can remove or report attacks in the following ways:

• Twitter: The platform provides a form for reporting abusive users and details of the behavior. It also suggests contacting local authorities to resolve the issues offline "if the interaction has gone beyond the point of name-calling."
• Facebook: The company provides guidelines for reporting violations. It suggests hiding the abusive item from your news feed, sending a message to the poster asking them to take the item down, and unfriending or blocking the individual. You can also set up permissions to approve tagged photos, turn off commenting on posts, and disable location settings.
• Instagram: New safety features have been added similar to Facebook's, including the ability for users to add photos tagged with themselves, blocking, and location disablement. You can also remove followers, report trolling accounts (and perhaps even get them removed), and turn off commenting.

At times, these measures may not be enough, or the personal attack may have already been launched. It is important to remain calm under these circumstances and to seek professional help when needed.

We provide our Global Support Service for anyone affected by digital abuse. While tricky to prove and potentially expensive, legal action (police and courts) may sometimes be necessary, as well as the use of an ORM service.

Case Study: Walgreen CFO vs. CEO 2014 Litigation

Former Walgreen chief financial officer Wade Miquelon filed a 2014 lawsuit against former Walgreen's CEO, Greg Wasson, and director Stefano Pessina, the company's biggest shareholder. The defamation suit claimed that the two defamed Miquelon in meetings with large shareholders.

The contents of the meetings later became the subject of a Wall Street Journal profile, which Miquelon claimed negatively affected his prospects for future employment. Both Wasson and Pessina were noted to say they held Miquelon "personally responsible" for Walgreen's $1 billion mistake that tainted the company's financial disclosure.

Miquelon claimed that he was not pushed out of his position following a lower-than-expected forecast but instead left after six years due to reasons that were cited as "personal, based on his desire to pursue opportunities outside of Walgreen." He said in the lawsuit that he believed Walgreen executives unfairly defamed him after he resisted moving company headquarters abroad in a tax inversion maneuver.

The Consequences of Professional Reputation Attacks

Professional attacks sometimes result in the attacker contacting a person's place of employment, the school they have applied to, or a membership-based organization in order to tarnish their reputation, potentially leading them to be fired or not admitted.

Such attacks are often fueled by a desire for revenge after a person is rejected and seek to inflict maximum harm, which can result in the following:

• If professional attacks go too far, they can lead to financial harm.
• If the attack takes place online, it may cost a considerable amount to get the statements or comments removed in order to prevent others from finding them.

In both of these circumstances, there are profound consequences that can impact an individual for years.

How to Manage Your Professional Reputation

First, the extremity of the reputation attack must be taken into account. For example, a person expressing a negative opinion about you or sharing an embarrassing story about you is not the same as making a false and defamatory statement that may cost you a job. There is also a line between defamation and harassment or bullying.

• Note: To understand the nuances of a reputation attack, you may want to consult with an experienced legal professional.

Professional defamation is often difficult to prove in legal courts because, in most instances, there has to be clear evidence that the false statement was made knowingly and recklessly and that it did damage to your reputation (e.g., loss of a job). However, if you feel there are sufficient grounds to press forward with action, documentation is vital. Create a file and save as much evidence as possible.

If you learn that someone has contacted your workplace or such in order to discredit you, your first step should be to document the incident.

• Note: You can name all involved, what was said (verbatim, if possible), and record the date, time, and place.

The most constructive route is to have a conversation with a human resources or similar company representative (if you are in school, this could be a dean, head of a department, or teacher), but do not directly engage with the person threatening your reputation.

By the time such harassment escalates to your professional life, police or legal authorities can be contacted.

Always keep it positive: Like-for-like retaliation is not a wise approach when dealing with a reputation attack. Take control of your own online spaces and focus on keeping them positive, safe, and secure. When interacting with users on social media, engage positively with your audience.

Technical solutions: preventative and reactive strategies can be created using filtering, blocking, monitoring programs, and AI/machine learning tools. Learn what's available and how to use it effectively.

Invest wisely: Developing healthy, pro-active reputation management is now a crucial element of business that requires time and money. Identify the areas you need to focus on and invest wherever possible.

Never argue online: Publicly defending yourself may seem like a natural and fair thing to do, but this can often trigger more negative online content. Avoid arguments, and always try to engage pro-actively.

Legal counsel: In some cases, legal action may be an option. Ensure you have legal resources that can help identify issues such as copyright infringement, slander or defamation, and data theft.

Prevention: Monitoring your reputation with search engine alerts can help keep you one step ahead in responding positively to issues. This is especially important when timing is of the essence and before they become bigger problems.

There are many considerations when it comes to protecting our own reputations. It's not always possible to prevent an attack from occurring; however, being prepared for the eventuality is best practice. If in any doubt, it is always advisable to seek professional advice or legal counsel, depending on the circumstances.