[HN Gopher] Leaked files reveal reputation-management firm's dec...
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Leaked files reveal reputation-management firm's deceptive tactics
Author : r721
Score : 132 points
Date : 2023-02-17 16:08 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| fuzzy_biscuit wrote:
| I used to work in reputation management in the healthcare space,
| and it was soul-crushing. Doctors who had killed patients through
| negligence or malpractice in other states and moved to get
| licensed would hire us to create a flood of content to push down
| sites that ranked in Google that showed the judgment against
| them. After doing that for a few years, I left because I was so
| burnt out. I'll never make that kind of moral compromise with
| myself again.
| foobiekr wrote:
| Don't worry, there is ample evidence all around us that there
| are plenty - hundreds of thousands at least - of engineers who
| have zero moral compass.
| random3 wrote:
| Understand where you're coming from but your guilt is less
| waranted that with a defense attorney.
|
| It's not your job to enforce policies that don't exist. There's
| a broken policy if doctors cand switch jurisdictions like that.
|
| In Europe there's https://gdpr.eu/right-to-be-forgotten/ that
| gives poeple the right to for free what your company charged
| money for.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| > It's not your job to enforce policies that don't exist.
|
| If you have moral qualms with what you're being paid to do,
| then a policy exists. It just might not be a government
| policy.
|
| Maybe we shouldn't expect people to become crusaders for the
| cause, but I do think it's reasonable to expect them to
| distance themselves from that kind of work (which GP did,
| kudos).
| throwanem wrote:
| Don't worry! No one will ever ask you to again, now that we
| have LLMs that can do the same work faster, cheaper, and with
| no troublesome concerns over the morality of it all.
|
| (I'm laughing right now, but not because I'm happy...)
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| The web was getting worse and worse even without them.
| Perhaps the inevitable weaponization of LLM's will be the
| hangover that finally gets us to quit.
|
| Quit implicitly trusting advertisers to direct our attention,
| that is.
| jancsika wrote:
| How was it obvious that these doctors were guilty of
| negligence?
| whatshisface wrote:
| They said "judgement" so they must have been ruled against.
| jancsika wrote:
| Ah, thanks. I somehow missed that part.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| I wonder how many of these websites are presently being used as
| citations to lock whitewashed claims made about clients on their
| Wikipedia pages.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| I frequently see people on HN link to these sorts of biased
| content farms sites when groping around in the dark of the
| internet in a frequently very successful bid to back up
| falsehood in heated political debate. They are doing that for
| free and they basically never get called out. In a commercial
| setting where you have paid people who's job it is to do that
| from 9-5 and where things are generally far less controversial
| and therefore far less subject to challenge I can only assume
| the proportion is higher.
| youngtaff wrote:
| I used to see the 'Right to be Forgotten' notifications from
| Google for a UK national newspaper.
|
| Almost every one was for a story where someone had been convicted
| of a crime, or professional misconduct and so wanted the story
| removed from Google's index to make it harder to find their
| misdeeds
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| > someone had been convicted of a crime
|
| The issue isn't that people who commit crimes can hide their
| past, but that "corrections" facilities to not rehabilitate
| criminals into law-abiding members of society.
|
| Having a criminal past follow someone for their entire life is
| a surefire way to make sure they can't find legal ways of
| making money.
| dannyobrien wrote:
| In accordance with prophecy, sadly. People really don't realise
| to what degree deletion (or rather de-ranking) is a tool of the
| powerful, not a boon for the weak.
| O__________O wrote:
| Super common tactic used by any entity with enough resources that
| is unable to directly stop the information from being spread.
|
| Here's a notable example:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/26/mesmerising...
| mherdeg wrote:
| Is the idea here that if you search for [Boris Johnson bus]
| you'll find results about his supposed hobby instead of the
| "let's fund the NHS" bus?
|
| Reminds me of the headcanon that Disney released "Frozen" so
| when you search for [Disney frozen] you find the movie instead
| of the stories about Walt Disney and cryopreservation.
| zpeti wrote:
| What's interesting about the Boris bus is that NHS funding
| has increased by way more than what was promised since then.
|
| Yet it's somehow still held up as a lie. The NHS gets
| something like 30-40% more funding since brexit.
| cesaref wrote:
| I don't think you're quite right. There are budgets and
| projections here -
| https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-
| nutshell/nhs-...
|
| If we take 2016 and compare against 2023 for NHS budget, we
| see a figure of 124bn compared to a projected 152bn for
| this year.
|
| If we use the bank of england inflation calculator
| (https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-
| policy/inflation/in...)
|
| It says 124bn in 2016 would be the equivalent of 155bn in
| 2023.
|
| So, we're currently funding the NHS less today than we did
| in 2016 in real terms. The Brexit bus suggested an
| additional 18bn per year could be made available for the
| NHS. If this was the case, this would work out as an
| additional 22bn with inflation.
|
| Anyhow, lies, damn lies and statistics :)
| philjohn wrote:
| When you include the PS37bn for test and trace, and PSPSPS
| for vaccine rollout, yes, but that's somewhat disingenuous
| (and one could argue done by the Government to hoodwink).
|
| The other oft-trotted lie is that the NHS is "awash with
| middle managers!" when the manager to frontline staff ratio
| is far lower than in comparable private sector companies.
|
| Plainly speaking, the NHS is short on doctors and nurses,
| short on beds, and downstream services like care homes are
| not numerous enough, leading to bed blocking. It's also not
| had funding to keep up with an ageing population. Far less
| money is spent on the NHS than on private healthcare +
| medicare and medicaid in the US, and less per person than
| comparable EU countries.
| O__________O wrote:
| Correct, here are the related Wikipedia pages for these type
| of media tactics, which are commonly called Google bombing,
| whitewashing campaigns, reputation laundering, etc:
|
| https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bombing
|
| https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewashing_(censorship)
|
| https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_laundering
| itronitron wrote:
| It seems like that would also explain a lot of Elon Musk's
| antics, although that may be giving him too much credit.
| O__________O wrote:
| Do you have any notable examples of Elon doing keyword
| bombing, media washing, reputation laundering, etc?
| itronitron wrote:
| You mean other than buying Twitter?
| JohnFen wrote:
| Let's be fair to Musk on this. He didn't want to buy
| Twitter. He was playing games and ended up trapping
| himself into it.
| phs318u wrote:
| So you're saying he's an idiot?
|
| Not disagreeing, it's just an interesting argument to
| make about a supposedly genius billionaire.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I don't think he's an idiot, but I equally don't think
| he's shown any signs of being a genius.
| zo1 wrote:
| What's ironic is they're doing the opposite of what they
| claim Elon Musk is doing. So they randomly inject Elon Musk
| into a conversation about this topic to add that
| association. Imagine the insanity if bings ChatGPT got a
| hold of this thread as truth.
|
| Oops, I may have dragged ChatGPT into it now too.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| https://www.thecut.com/2022/07/elon-musk-tweet-no-sex-
| ages.h...
|
| Two months after being accused of sexual harassment by a
| flight attendant.
| Pyramus wrote:
| Not the expert on this, but Tesla whistle and Tesla shorts
| come to mind immediately. There are more subtle ones, e.g.
| the Tesla respirators right when Covid hit.
|
| This was all before Twitter of course.
| houseinthesky wrote:
| I think Tesla shorts was just him having a laugh at the
| investors shorting Tesla and showing confidence in the
| company. It increased media coverage of, and popular
| discussion about, the number of Tesla shares sold short.
| It wasn't about hiding or suppressing it, it was about
| showing that he wasn't concerned and was in some sense,
| "standing up to" the people predicting Tesla's demise.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| > Eliminalia did work for an Italian spyware company that had
| been fined for selling surveillance technology to Syria's
| autocratic regime, and for a Swiss bank that had drawn public
| scrutiny over Venezuelan clients who were suspected of money
| laundering. It also worked on behalf of a well-known traveling
| circus clown who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a
| 14-year-old girl in Switzerland.
|
| How bizarre it must be to have interactions with clients like
| these be your every day workday.
| kradroy wrote:
| Back in 2010 I had a friend refer two potential clients to me,
| who were looking to get some links related to them pushed down
| and off the first page of search results. The links were about
| financial fraud convictions and ongoing investigations into
| them and their business. The guys were claiming that it was
| "hard to get dates" because "crazy chicks do Google-sleuthing"
| and ghost them. I knew that was all bullshit, and they were
| just looking to defraud more people.
|
| I spoke to them for about 30 minutes and I remember feeling
| disgusted by the end of the call due to what absolute creeps
| they were. I was also certain they'd stiff me on the bill, if
| in some bizarro universe I had agreed to do the work.
|
| So yeah, I can't imagine the morals of the person who willingly
| offers this type of service.
| olliej wrote:
| I love how they think "I don't want girls to know I'm a
| criminal" makes them come off better. Also "crazy girls"
| aren't googling you, it's pretty much anyone.
|
| It can be a basic personal safety step, if it's a date rather
| than a hookup they could be doing a "do we have common
| interests, do we have incompatible beliefs,etc" search, and
| even a "I want to show interest in them, what are some things
| we can do/see together".
|
| If your first hits are you criming that implies that shit is
| recent, so they need to know.
| whoopdedo wrote:
| I hope whoever worked for them got payment up-front.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I kinda hope whoever worked for them got stiffed.
| apstls wrote:
| And failed to deliver
| euroderf wrote:
| Win-Win
| SeanLuke wrote:
| Has Wikipedia blacklisted these sites yet? I wonder how many of
| these websites are presently being used as citations to lock
| whitewashed claims made about clients on their Wikipedia pages.
| bombcar wrote:
| The way you attack Wikipedia is different, the "not notable"
| can be very powerful.
| Yoric wrote:
| Can you elaborate?
| dakial1 wrote:
| This company work will be infinitely easier with LLM like
| Chatgpt. Lower cost and quicker fake content generation.
|
| I foresee the next iteration of Google Search Algo having a
| penalty for AI generated content...
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| There is a tricky arms race if I ever saw one.
|
| How do you beat that? Presumably an AI, and you have it copy
| the public-ish AI to see what it generates, and then compare?
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Not everyone who needs this is a bad guy.
|
| I did this, as a favor to a friend. She had written some erotica
| under a pen name and someone recirculated it, against her wishes,
| under her real name. Well, the magic of RSS took hold and
| suddenly any search for her was smutty. And she was looking for a
| job change at the time ...
| clnq wrote:
| One can also change their name in that case. It might be one of
| the most effective ways of wiping one's internet slate clean.
| colpabar wrote:
| https://archive.is/JWvqB
| matbilodeau wrote:
| Paywall workaround https://archive.is/xWFx3
|
| original article https://forbiddenstories.org/story-killers/the-
| gravediggers-...
| dakial1 wrote:
| If you search the owner of Eliminalia, Diego "Didac" Sanchez, you
| get some crazy stories (in spanish):
|
| https://www.elconfidencial.com/tecnologia/2015-09-11/pederas...
|
| Though not sure if fact-based jornalism or not as I don't know
| the reputation of that site (maybe anyone from Spain can
| comment).
| jameshart wrote:
| Hardly a glowing recommendation for his reputation management
| capabilities
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Reminds me of how apartment complexes, especially in college
| towns, will change their name if a crime happens there that makes
| the news. Then prospective tenants looking up information about
| 'University Heights on the Green' won't see the stories about the
| series of rapes the year before at 'Twin Oaks Parkside' unless
| they think to do a search on the address.
| sublinear wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the name change is usually far more benign than
| that. Apartments depreciate faster in some areas than others.
| It can also be difficult to turn a profit especially in a
| college town where nobody but broke and rowdy students want to
| live. Apartment complexes then get new ownership after the last
| one gives up and the new property management changes the name
| to fit their brand.
| blue039 wrote:
| Even though this article takes a "bad people helping bad people"
| side to the story it's important to consider the reality of the
| situation. Even if you're the most honest person in the world
| it'll take one twitter post from one persistent rock-in-shoe tier
| person to destroy you and your career. In today's "everything is
| political" economy one minor misstep 10 years ago can
| fundamentally put you on the street and eating from soup
| kitchens. Worse, the accusation need not be truthful. It simply
| needs to be believable given your immutable characteristics and
| especially if those characteristics match what people allege is
| the "majority".
|
| Reputation management should be something all of us should
| consider. Adopting these "dark triad" tactics is not only
| sufficient but absolutely necessary for survival when every
| single person you interact with may use you as a stepping stone
| to their own 15 minutes of fame. Honesty is simply a weakness.
| Use whatever means, underhanded or not, to shape consensus of
| you.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> Honesty is simply a weakness._
|
| OMJ. You said the quiet part out loud.
|
| This attitude is _wrong_. Very, _very_ wrong.
|
| In fact, people and corporations that can maintain personal and
| corporate Integrity, in today's world, are generally badass
| MFs, and it's not likely to end well for those that mistake
| Integrity for weakness.
|
| Go ahead, underestimate them. That should be fun.
| blue039 wrote:
| > In fact, people and corporations that can maintain personal
| and corporate Integrity, in today's world, are generally
| badass MFs, and it's not likely to end well for those that
| mistake Integrity for weakness.
|
| Cool opinion. None of it is true. You may think they are
| "generally badass MFers" but there are plenty of people,
| myself included, who will see "corporate integrity" as a
| weakness. In fact, if you interviewed the world's most
| powerful people I'd bet all the money I had none of them
| would tell you to be a "nice person" with "integrity". Warren
| Buffett, for example, uses this image (and you should abuse
| such an image), but historically is a cutthroat.
|
| If you want integrity join a church. The people in power who
| have convinced you that they have integrity and that's how
| they got there are exploiting your naive sense of moral
| purpose in life. Wake up.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > if you interviewed the world's most powerful people I'd
| bet all the money I had none of them would tell you to be a
| "nice person" with "integrity".
|
| This is pretty much the only thing you've said here that I
| agree with. But I don't see how that means anyone should
| emulate them, or even that emulating them is likely to get
| you any power.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> If you want integrity join a church._
|
| I am sorry that you have had the experiences that you have
| had.
|
| On the other hand, I have had some obviously orthogonal
| ones.
|
| My statement was a blanket statement that obviously does
| not apply everywhere, and I apologize.
|
| However, I'd still suggest caution, if you act upon the
| assumption of weakness, indicated by Integrity or Kindness.
|
| I won't go into my personal story here, but I have very
| good reason, for my attitude. I've personally seen some of
| the very worst of humanity, but also have seen some of the
| very best.
|
| You might be surprised at the places we can find the light.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| This reads exactly like a posting from the reputation
| management company trying to salvage its reputation.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Indeed. The real solution is:
|
| - Delete Twitter
|
| - Delete Facebook
|
| - Try not to be a dick in general
|
| And regular people will be fine.
|
| As to the level of surprise we should feel for bad people
| paying for reputation management, and the reputation
| management company using shady tactics, the answer is none.
| mola wrote:
| Regular people yes,but anything other than a harsh response
| to these firms means that we can't have representative who
| are "regular".this is how democracy dies.
| lordnacho wrote:
| What happens if you are unjustly smeared?
| bombcar wrote:
| The nuclear bomb option is to change your name to Michael
| Bolton or some other common or famous name.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I've been unjustly smeared a few times over the decades.
| What I found works for me is to ignore it. If you pay
| attention to it, you give it more credence. Protesting
| too much tends to make people think there must be some
| truth to the smear.
|
| When asked about it, you tell the truth plainly and
| calmly.
|
| If you have a history of conducting yourself with
| integrity, that's enough. None of the smears will
| seriously hurt you because the people who matter know
| better.
| jstarfish wrote:
| Traditionally, ignore it. Streisand Effect.
|
| These days, ChatGPT-generated progressively-unhinged
| nonsense could easily drown out legitimate claims,
| especially if you post it to your own Wikipedia page.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Surprisingly, deleting your social media does not stop
| other people making posts about you which may be widely
| read.
| jstarfish wrote:
| The truth is defined by whoever yells their side of the story
| the loudest.
|
| Outside of a courtroom, material facts and evidence don't
| matter the slightest bit. Defamation? Ha.
|
| And even with courts ruling against you, it changes nothing.
| Look at the Gary Wilson and Nicole Prause fiasco.
|
| The world will never have another Mr. Rogers. People are
| _still_ trying to dig up dirt on him. Even Melanie got
| cancelled.
| mola wrote:
| No, this is bad people helping bad people. You are just being
| apologetic to terrible behavior. Thus enabling terrible
| behavior. Especially since it's the same people that usually
| are behind "taking down" individuals with false claims. Most of
| us are not psychopaths, and we shouldn't normalize malignant
| psychopathy
| blue039 wrote:
| Yes, because royalty got to its position through being a self
| described "empathetic person".
|
| No, power is awarded to those bold enough to do what needs to
| be done. You'd be wise to read _The Prince_, and instead of
| being revolted by it, take it as a lesson in how people such
| as US presidents, CEOs, dictators, etc all come to power.
|
| I'm getting downvoted because people like you haven't studied
| history. Typical of the pseudo-intellectual I doubt you've
| read any books on the historical acquisition of power. If you
| did, you'd notice the common thread across all cultures,
| kingdoms, and royalty. There's a distinct difference between
| deliberate machiavellianism, and uncontrolled
| machiavellianism. The former is business, the latter is
| "psychopathy". I put it in quotes because you also do not
| have any idea what psychopathy actually is. I'm sure you go
| around the office calling people "nazis" and "fascists" too.
| inkcapmushroom wrote:
| My guy, you are not going to become royalty no matter how
| much you lie to everyone in your life. There are many jerks
| who live in the gutters and prisons too, far more than ones
| who live like kings.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I could not disagree more.
|
| > Honesty is simply a weakness.
|
| This is not only untrue, but interacting with anyone who really
| believes it is incredibly dangerous.
|
| If this is the prevailing attitude amongst "reputation
| management" firms, then I feel pretty safe in assuming anyone
| engaging these firms or similar tactics are doing so because
| they're bad actors.
| blue039 wrote:
| > This is not only untrue, but interacting with anyone who
| really believes it is incredibly dangerous.
|
| This opinion literally only exists in a pseudo-intellectual
| echo chamber such as this one.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Not even close, no. It certainly exists in those echo
| chambers, but it's also very common in the general
| population.
| sowbug wrote:
| Depends on how you feel about criminal justice. Is the purpose
| of the criminal justice system in society mainly for
| retribution? Or rehabilitation?
|
| Are criminals bad people? Or are there no bad people, just bad
| acts?
|
| Can someone ever pay their debt to society? Should they get to
| start over once they've paid?
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Some crimes may be an indication of a bad decision or a
| mistake people have moved past others are reasonably an
| indelible indication of bad character.
|
| For instance good people don't kill their wives for money,
| drag joggers into the bushes to rape them or molest children.
| Neither search engines nor governments seem well suited to
| make this distinction so I'd just as soon privilege non
| criminals ability to make decisions to protect themselves
| over the privacy and well being of the criminals not to
| punish wrongdoing but out of selfish self interest.
|
| I do not support the right to be forgotten and think false
| DMCA claims out to carry the same fine as copyright
| infringement to discourage misuse.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Are criminals bad people? Or are there no bad people, just
| bad acts?
|
| This is much too black and white. Reality has far more shades
| of gray in it than that.
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