Leaked files reveal reputation-management firm’s deceptive tactics

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2023/eliminalia-fake-news-misinformation/

by r721 • 3 years ago

183 105 3 years ago

washingtonpost.com

matbilodeau• 3 years ago

Paywall workaround https://archive.is/xWFx3

original article https://forbiddenstories.org/story-killers/the-gravediggers-...

O__________O3• 3 years ago

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...

itronitron2• 3 years ago

It seems like that would also explain a lot of Elon Musk's antics, although that may be giving him too much credit.

O__________O3• 3 years ago

Do you have any notable examples of Elon doing keyword bombing, media washing, reputation laundering, etc?

mherdeg• 3 years ago

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.

O__________O3• 3 years ago

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

zpeti• 3 years ago

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.

__MatrixMan__6• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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.

whoopdedo• 3 years ago

I hope whoever worked for them got payment up-front.

olliej• 3 years ago

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.

blue0394• 3 years ago

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.

SeanLuke3• 3 years ago

This reads exactly like a posting from the reputation management company trying to salvage its reputation.

RajT88• 3 years ago

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.

mola2• 3 years ago

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

blue0394• 3 years ago

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.

from2• 3 years ago

The article points to a handful of bad people who used this service. They do not cover the other thousands of other likely substantially less egregious cases. Yes, the way they misrepresent themselves to take down stuff is wrong and probably illegal but fundamentally I don't think someone should be effectively barred from employment forever for a mistake they made several years ago which is what happens when arrest press releases and republications of them are allowed to indefinitely be the first thing that comes up when you search someone's name. Not to mention the fact that some of the people mentioned in the article have never actually been convicted of anything but have had their name dragged through the mud anyways.

sowbug• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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.

JohnFen8• 3 years ago

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.

JohnFen8• 3 years ago

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.

blue0394• 3 years ago

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.

jstarfish2• 3 years ago

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.

vestments• 3 years ago

Dude, Gary Wilson had her name posted over 10,000 times claiming she was in porn and all kinds of nonsense before he killed himself. What a f-ing nightmare. And he was the one who got a defamation firm after attacking all those women for > 10 years! What a joke.

ChrisMarshallNY2• 3 years ago

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.

blue0394• 3 years ago

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.

fuzzy_biscuit• 3 years ago

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.

jancsika2• 3 years ago

How was it obvious that these doctors were guilty of negligence?

whatshisface• 3 years ago

They said "judgement" so they must have been ruled against.

throwanem6• 3 years ago

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__6• 3 years ago

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.

foobiekr• 3 years ago

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.

random32• 3 years ago

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__6• 3 years ago

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).

pictureofabear• 3 years ago

Personal and societal morals supersede government policies. Ideally, government policies strengthen societal morals, but that is not always the case.

salawat• 3 years ago

Why would a defense attorney need feel guilty? All humans are fundamentally duplicitous, which includes "the good guys". I'm fine with a serial killer getting the best defense possible. Without a strong counterpressure in a system, no relative virtue has the capacity to be emerge.

Everyone needs a good defense. No exceptions.

In point of fact, before the emergence of Law & Order, it was often the defense attorney focused on as the person of virtue in the legal system. Governments gonna government. They have tons of tax money to throw at locking people up.

A defense attorney has their assistants, wits, and maybe a PI or two they can reach out to to get them info to use in the defense of their client.

And even with a 100% open shut, they done it case, the hypothetical defendant still deserves someone that will exercise every legal remedy/avenue on their behalf, because, damnit, no one else will, and if we're going to pretend our legal system is even remotely okay, there has to be someone to look out for even the scumbags.

The only tragedy is that like so much these days, the inequity of the system is laid bare by the paltry quality/funding dispersed to the Public Defender's office compared to what gets raked in by the big firms & outfits.

mdmglr• 3 years ago

Anyone know of an online database I can find these judgements by enter a doctors name?

mmsimanga• 3 years ago

In no way do I intend on defending the doctors. I am glad you quit and you don't have the moral dilemma. What has become murky for me is that often the truth lies in the middle. Doctor who killed someone isn't the best example so I will use technology as an example. It is often not clear when something goes wrong whether it was the technology, the manner in which technology was deployed, the skills of the personnel involved or some other external factor. If you talk to the people who chose the technology you will get one story, the people operating the technology another story and to the person who has to pay another story. This how we end up with companies successfully launching successful products using PHP and MySQL yet these same two technologies are trashed ad nauseum here on HN. Just who is right or telling the truth you will never really know.

SeanLuke3• 3 years ago

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.

bombcar2• 3 years ago

The way you attack Wikipedia is different, the "not notable" can be very powerful.

Yoric• 3 years ago

Can you elaborate?

SeanLuke3• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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.

Red_Leaves_Flyy5• 3 years ago

These people run afoul of the ftc paid influencer disclosure regulations.

youngtaff• 3 years ago

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

dannyobrien• 3 years ago

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.

ErikVandeWater• 3 years ago

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.

Red_Leaves_Flyy5• 3 years ago

The part that really bugs is when some privileged criminal goes through all the trouble of white washing their online presence only to commit more crimes. Shouldn’t that be an aggravating factor during sentencing to prove premeditation?

Mountain_Skies• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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.

dakial12• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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?

colpabar• 3 years ago

https://archive.is/JWvqB

dakial12• 3 years ago

If you search the owner of Eliminalia, Diego "Dídac" Sánchez, 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• 3 years ago

Hardly a glowing recommendation for his reputation management capabilities

at_a_remove2• 3 years ago

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 ...

clnq2• 3 years ago

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.

iakov• 3 years ago

Perhaps a bit too radical? Imagine the headache of changing your legal name everywhere - from banks and driving licenses to frequent flyer cards and your doctors office. Uff, Id rather try the whitewashing first.

at_a_remove2• 3 years ago

Sometimes, rather than pull out the vacuum or scrubbing down the toilet, I just move to a new place. It's a lot simpler and quite thorough.

base3• 3 years ago

I did reputation scrubs for recovering alcoholics who couldn't get jobs because of pre-rehab pictures and social media posts. I was a volunteer. I still think I did the right thing.

throwaway4PP• 3 years ago

Has the list of client companies been made public anywhere?

pksebben2• 3 years ago

a more primary source, without all the ads: https://forbiddenstories.org/story-killers/the-gravediggers-...

from2• 3 years ago

How is this any different than a defense attorney? Should a 15 year old Reuters article prevent someone from ever gaining employment or getting a bank account again? I remember when mugshots.com was on HN everyone was all outraged about it. Seems a little hypocritical.

mikrotikker• 3 years ago

Seems like lessons learned by the pirate bays and zlibraries hydra as well as products like freenet, lbry/odysee and the like are a way to protect against bullshit like this.

Hosts like the one that hosted stormfront and gab and parler, while putting you in bad company, would keep the information on the internet.

hanslub42• 3 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20230218232640/https://www.washi...

Leaked files reveal reputation-management firm’s deceptive tactics

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