How the powerful clean up their digital past using a reputation laundering firm

https://restofworld.org/2022/documents-reputation-laundering-firm-eliminalia/

302 92 4 years ago

uniqueuid• 4 years ago

I wonder how much of a business the reverse would be.

A "reputation archive" company that keeps vouched copies of potentially harmful dirt on "the powerful", available on demand. Sure you can do opposition research to dig up things, but why go through that effort when you can simply wait passively and harvest later?

Cthulhu_• 4 years ago

A "reputation archive" company that keeps vouched copies of potentially harmful dirt on "the powerful", available on demand.

These companies do exist; I tried to google but came up empty, but I've heard that there are companies that keep collections of dirt on people like politicians, that can be released at strategic times (e.g. before elections). It's likely the various 'secret' services around the world have similar caches, like this rumour that the Kremlin had 'kompromat' on Trump (camera footage of prostitutes pissing on him or something), threatening to release it if he didn't do as they told him. I mean nothing came of that, as far as we know, so it might've just been propaganda, but it sounds plausible enough - both that Trump would be doing that, and that the KGB or whatever it is these days would have cameras in dignitaries' hotel rooms.

barry-cotter• 4 years ago

If Trump frequented sex workers surely some evidence would have shown up? It’s not like he’s discreet about his marriages, affairs and dalliances. He doesn’t appear to be capable of shutting up.

MadSudaca• 4 years ago

One problem is that often you can’t tell who’s going to be powerful in advance. So by the time they go under the spotlight, they have had time to clean up their dirt.

titzer• 4 years ago

When you have 20,000 quadrillion bytes of storage, you can just do everyone.

rdtwo2• 4 years ago

You have to probably backup Reddit, and all forums that are related to views you oppose there can’t be that much organic content out there.

ben_w2• 4 years ago

How do you know if you’re looking at a real honest archive, or someone that inserted libel (or even just reputation damaging BS below the threshold for libel) in exchange for money?

Although the phrase “fake news” itself is a used as a magic wand to dismiss uncomfortable facts, this can and does happen.

wongarsu• 4 years ago

The best way around that would be basically a list of internet archive snapshots of newspaper articles. You can probably automate it somewhat by watching relevant newspapers, submitting everything for archival at a trusted 3rd party, then checking what gets removed by the publication or delisted at google.

belter• 4 years ago

Wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/

Spooky232• 4 years ago

I’m sure someone is operating a company doing this already. Opposition research is a thing.

dboreham• 4 years ago

It's called "The National Enquirer"

bitxbitxbitcoin2• 4 years ago

There are sites in tourist towns that publish pictures of mugshots and then charge you to take them down. Had a friend get arrested while drunk and have to pay to get his picture taken down.

wpietri2• 4 years ago

Seems like it might be monetizeable through ads, as soon you'd be the top search result for a bunch of terms that otherwise won't have good hits.

While I was developing my @sfships Twitter bot, I needed to look up a ton of locodes, 5-character codes for "economically significant" places. The agency in charge of them releases it as CSV and Microsoft Access files, so it's a pain to quickly access the data. I said, "fuck this" and turned it into a website. E.g.:

https://locode.info/USNYC

On a lark, I put some Google Ads on it; a few times a year Google sends me $100. More than enough to pay for the site itself. Given that I haven't touched it in a few years that's good enough for me.

thom• 4 years ago

Surely an even better business would be to _create_ this dirt? All you'd need is a jet, a private island, and an international human trafficking ring. You'd be set for life!

kodah2• 4 years ago

A "reputation archive" company that keeps vouched copies of potentially harmful dirt on "the powerful", available on demand.

Sounds like you've come up with a business plan even more harmful than Facebook.

When I did some volunteer work with a Progressive organization I found out that there's an underground of people who do exactly this work. Their archives are private, though, and I can't speak to their vetting process. When I learned about it the only thing I could say was, "This sounds like professionalized character assassination."

rdtwo2• 4 years ago

This does not surprise me that it exists. I’m sure they target every conservative forum and back it up. Then when a person becomes political they cross check all of these for incriminating data.

linkjuice4all• 4 years ago

These techniques are also used by everyday “boring” brands to sink bad reviews and similar. In many cases it’s primarily US-based companies that are leveraging some of these EU protections in addition to all the copyright/DMCA stuff in the US.

It’s not really that expensive either. You can go with a reputation management company or just use your own legal team once you’re large enough.

The more-annoying part is that it is getting harder to see who and what has been taken down so it’s harder to track the information that’s being targeted and the people behind it. Google has been providing less information in the DMCA notices (they used to basically be a complete list of the offending content) - I think now they just list paths or domains but not the complete URL.

Scoundreller• 4 years ago

leveraging some of these EU protections in addition to all the copyright/DMCA stuff in the US.

I spent quite a bunch of time in Europe last year and would see quite a few search results noting something being removed under EU right to be forgotten legislation. Often I wondered wtf could have been removed. The law is probably abused for PR reasons, but like dmca, would cost a lot to fight and better to hope it stays under the radar and unpopular.

Also saw lots of blurred out stuff on google maps, but yandex is rather willing to share the sat views of prisons and other facilities ;)

ChrisMarshallNY2• 4 years ago

I remember reading an article in Encyclopedia Dramatica (I won’t link to it, as it’s fairly NSFW), in which they posted a bunch of really tasteless pictures of some poor girl’s body, after a horrific auto accident. These were taken by a first responder at the scene.

She came from a prominent family, and the family hired one of these firms to “clean up” the images.

It did not seem to work. In fact, it seemed to have the opposite effect (see “Streisand Effect”). Trolls tend to take this kind of thing as a challenge.

cm2187• 4 years ago

Can’t she DMCA their host providers? Unless it’s on the dark web or some sort of self hosting.

DocTomoe• 4 years ago

Good luck making a case that you have the copyright to some picture of you taken by someone else. If anyone, the picture taker may have the copyright.

Some jurisdictions have the concept of a "right to your own image" if you are relatively unknown or if the image does not have sufficient content to suggest public interest, but afair, the US does not.

ChrisMarshallNY2• 4 years ago

ED is a fairly notorious site. I suspect they have 3 lawsuits on the front burner, on any given day.

Also, she (of course) did not take the picture, nor did anyone in her family. I suspect the FR that took the picture was fired with extreme prejudice. It may have even been illegal to take them. It was certainly a fairly abhorrent thing to do.

But it wasn't a copyright violation.

netsharc• 4 years ago

This story is also mentioned in Lo and Behold, the Werner Herzog documentary about the creation and effects of the Internet.

javajosh2• 4 years ago

Whether or not it's a prominent family, the continued distribution of ghoulish photographs of a dead young girl should come with substantial criminal penalties. There is no possible justification for it - it's not like it's a free speech issue. No family should have to deal with this along with the grieving process.

ineedasername2• 4 years ago

it's not like it's a free speech issue

Why is it unrelated to free speech? It seems like it would be a free speech issue if pre-accident images weren't allowed to be published, e.g., in a news article about the accident. I don't see a material difference that would take accident photos out of the domain of free speech.

For my part, as a parent, I would never want to look at such photos. I would however be alright with their use, for example in safe driving campaigns in drivers ed courses. I believe some driving courses (specifically against drunk driving) have done exactly that. I'm sure other families would feel differently, but I don't think there's a prima facie case to be made that no family ever would be okay with this and that it would always increase the emotional toll, or never have any benefit.

I certainly don't like them being published merely to satisfy the morbid curiosity of random internet folks, but I also don't see how you ban that without potentially running afoul of (US) free speech rights that have strict limits on speech restraints. Obscenity is one of those limits, but the law has continually struggle to find a bright line rule by which to measure such things. At a minimum, that lack of clarity still places this sort of image within the domain of free speech issues.

macilacilove• 4 years ago

If there is any suspicion that the prominent child's death was not an accident, it can very quickly become a free speech issue.

Nursie• 4 years ago

I've seen it fail as well, an old friend had some rather intimate pictures leaked. They sank a lot of money into suppressing them but ultimately it seems to be a fruitless endeavour.

toyg2• 4 years ago

You cannot guarantee suppression but you can discreetly reduce frequency until very few available versions exist, and hope they quietly die in the long run. You see this happening with certain videos and pictures, typically sex-related.

tgv• 4 years ago

"Trolls" (not sure if that's the correct term in this case) can only cover a small part of all the reputation repairs. Most of them stay below the radar, so nobody will even know it's been done.

aaron695• 4 years ago

It's really fucked that because these people are rich the clownland sheep see the need to present this in a negative way. Have people just lost the ability to think, or have they never had it?

This should be a human right.

For thousands of years people have forgotten, it's how we need to function as human beings.

This has been taken away. This is not a good thing. The internet should not be a giant dox machine.

The digital present is more complex, but it too should not be a free for all in any moral and well functioning society. This is all going to get a lot worse.

autoexec2• 4 years ago

There's a huge difference between the average person wanting their old social media posts from their edgelord days "forgotten" and corporations and government officials abusing copyright laws to bury evidence of their corruption, lies, and criminal history.

nsajko• 4 years ago

Relevant Wikipedia pages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminalia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_management

Relevant HN discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5926408

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21784533

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26924109

dsr_2• 4 years ago

Yesterday I was cold-called by a firm that said that it could do things like this. I asked about their methods, and was told that they could find and remove trademark infringement, secrets and embarassing material from all social media and "the dark web", typically within 48 hours.

I asked if they had contracts with any of the social media companies, to which the salescritter responded that they had an excellent track record. I asked why the social media companies would pay more attention to their requests and take-down notices than they would to mine, and got no particular reassurances.

I suggested that if they could come back to me with proof that they had contracts with three social media companies, then I would consider them. I don't think I'll be hearing back.

ceejayoz3• 4 years ago

"There's a picture of me in the Bitcoin blockchain, can you get it removed?" would be a fun litmus test for these folks.

Guest42• 4 years ago

I wonder if that could turn into a government justification for shutting down the blockchain, something they don’t want in there.

UweSchmidt• 4 years ago

They could approach the intermediate services that are usually used to access the blockchain. Moxie had his NFT removed by one of the market places and gone it was from the wallet, gone for all practical purposes.

https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

martin_a• 4 years ago

would be a fun litmus test for these folks.

I always thought the same about those companies who pose themselves as some "domain registration office" and tell me that they have a customers request to register $firstname$lastname.$tld but that they found out about me and would like to offer me the domain, because I'm $firstname $lastname obviously. What would keep me from registering a TLD by myself and then order them to do so?

On the other hand: I already bought too many domains while being drunk, so I won't get deeper in to that.

SilasX• 4 years ago

Yes! I don't if there's a name for it, but that's a technique for vetting potential frauds -- ask them to do something impossible and see their reaction. It's arguably what the British MP was doing when he asked Charles Babbage if the Difference Engine would still give the right answers when you put the wrong numbers in.

memish• 4 years ago

PirateBay would be a good test too. Can they get things removed from there?

rideontime• 4 years ago

It's actually pretty easy, you just have to DMCA the service the image is actually hosted on.

metacritic12• 4 years ago

Would you actually buy their services or are you just baiting them / trying to figure out how it work and would never actually buy? I think salespeople at these sorts of companies are probably really good at filtering out the second.

dsr_2• 4 years ago

To the best of my knowledge, while the company has various secrets, none of them would be particularly embarassing. We wouldn't bother buying one of these services in advance of having a problem.

In my experience, the vast majority of salescritters making cold calls don't know much about the product that they are selling. They have about three paragraphs of information at their fingertips, and that's it. They often don't know whether it runs as a service or as delivered software, what operating systems it uses or can support, and in many cases they don't understand what it does or why someone would want to buy it.

coldtea• 4 years ago

I think salespeople at these sorts of companies are probably really good at filtering out the second.

Why would they be "really good" at "filtering out the second", as opposed to them just being a minimum viable outsourced sales department?

woah• 4 years ago

If this was something that you wanted done, I think it would absolutely make sense to pay someone experienced to do it. They will know the right places to submit the requests, follow up on it, etc. It all depends on how valuable your time is and how interested you are in doing it yourself.

robk• 4 years ago

If they were good they may have support or ops people on payroll. I was surprised no one had done this at Google. Would have been easy to get away with back in the day.

ren_engineer• 4 years ago

I asked why the social media companies would pay more attention to their requests and take-down notices than they would to mine, and got no particular reassurances

it wouldn't be hard to go on LinkedIn and find some of Twitter's content managers and bribe them by paying them on the side to prioritize certain requests. Amazon had an issue with this related to their product ratings

https://www.techspot.com/news/76465-amazon-employees-alleged...

jannyfer• 4 years ago

Recently I read the book "Shoe Dog" and was curious who one of the characters were (Sarah).

I couldn't find it on Google, and was surprised that either nobody on the internet had talked about it, or Google had just become so bad for deep searches that it could only give me results about shoes and people named Sarah.

Maybe this had to do with why... And if so, I guess I have to just get used to not being able to satisfy my curiosity.

bitxbitxbitcoin2• 4 years ago

I was an editor at a cryptocurrency news site and i have been approached by a reputation management “SEO firm” before.

I once got offered money to include the given name of a well known crypto startup founder in an existing positive article about him. Because if you searched for his given name back then, it brought you to his previous career photographing underage swimsuit models.

This is what the redacted email said:

>

My name is Kyle Kilgore and I am with Sharp SEO Services. A client of mine has contracted me out to work on a reputation management campaign for First Last.

To verify what I am doing for First name please contact Mr.Last name and tell him I am working on behalf of Joseph Chinnock for making sure the changes on Google search engine's first page listing are the same for the keyword "Given name Last name” and "First name Last name”

There are just two changes I need done and will be more than happy to pay for you time to do it. The article page below is the reference content where I need changes about First Last:

[link redacted]

The changes desired are highlighted in BOLD text. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1.)

The title (H1 headers) needs to be changed from:

First Last Talks Newest Company Name Innovation: ***

To read as follows:

Given name Last name Talks Newest Company name Innovation: *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (2.)

As well as the first sentence in the first paragraph needs to be changed from:

company name’s co-founder First Last is no stranger to innovation.

To read as follows:

company name’s co-founder First Given Last is no stranger to innovation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If there is a fee for having you change this please let me know how you accept payments for doing this. Also, if possible, I need to know if this name change gets approved or disapproved as soon as possible.

I appreciate all your help and look forward to your response.

Best regards, Kyle Kilgore

openknot2• 4 years ago

From my previous experience in the news industry, it would be almost offensive to receive an email like this if one were an editor of a news publication.

Integrity as a journalist necessitates that one cannot accept payment from a person mentioned in a news article, and cannot agree to the attempt to compromise on journalistic independence. The cost to one's reputation as a journalist far outweighs the payment offered by the cold emailer from a reputation firm.

For any commenters without experience in the news industry, this request is disrespectful to the recipient as it assumes that the owner of the news site can be bought for or influenced with pay.

wolverine8764• 4 years ago

With due respect to the GP, it's not like the reputation management firm tried to buy off the NY Times. At less ethical levels of the news industry, being bought off by advertisers or powerful people seems not uncommon. Fox coordinated with Trump.

I am a big believer in the power and value of journalism, but in your experience, how far down do the ethics go?

userbinator• 4 years ago

"right to forget" = "right to rewrite history". When that idea was conceived, I knew how dangerous it would be, and what it could lead to.

"He who controls the past controls the future."

WaitWaitWha• 4 years ago

Misleading title. Theoretically, sure 'powerful' could mean those who are 'powerful' in the knowledge of how to do this - but i do not believe that is what the title was trying to do.

Anyone can do this, and have done this.

What these companies offer is the legwork, the right contacts at sites, and potential templates that make communication sound like it comes from solicitors/lawyers.

Reputation management has been around for thousands of years.

daenz• 4 years ago

I wonder if they have a sister company that specializes in blackmail.

moralestapia• 4 years ago

Google already does it for free with their billion-dollar AI algorithms that can't find anything relevant to a query.

hackernewds• 4 years ago

Anything? Bit of an overreaction here - assuming you have a bookkeeping register with all the info on the internet?

theshrike792• 4 years ago

Us less powerful people should also have a habit of cleaning up our social media presence.

When people go digging around other peoples old social media posts, nothing good has ever come from it. If your 5+ year old tweets or instagram photos have actual value to you, curate them to a blog you control and delete from the platforms.

nebula88044• 4 years ago

I mean they will just scrape your stuff, and if its simple blogs it is slightly easier to nab all that stuff vs Instagram. Isn't that what happened to Richard Stallman?

theshrike792• 4 years ago

If you've removed your old edgy stuff years ago and someone digs up scraped old tweets, I'm not sure even Court of Twitter will admit that into evidence.

gzer0• 4 years ago

The amount of nonsensical DMCA requests I have received is absolutely ridiculous.

Even more concerning, is the blind application of these DMCA requests for takedown by the registrars. We are heading down a very concerning path here.

cpsns• 4 years ago

I can't afford such services, but I can use the laws in my favour. For example I lost the password to a youtube channel from my teenager years. I wouldn't have wanted the content associated with adult me, so I simply DMCA'd myself and had the videos removed.

How the powerful clean up their digital past using a reputation laundering firm

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