Shell social media oil spill a 'coordinated online assassination'

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/shell-social-media-oil-spill-a-coordinated-online-assassination-20120719-22bpe.html

by nreece • 14 years ago

119 111 14 years ago

theage.com.au

hcurtiss4• 14 years ago

What's shocking to me is the blatant manipulation of the mob. Maybe this has gone on forever, but seeing it happen in real time on sites like Reddit is tripping me out. While I think my BS filter is more sophisticated than most, on the morning it was released I sent the Shell party video to a colleague to ask if he was there not realizing it was a spoof. Turns out he happened to know there was no such party.

I feel like the internet is becoming an increasingly dangerous place, and subtly so.

k3n2• 14 years ago

I'd pity them save for the fact that big oil has been 'blatantly manipulating the mob' for decades now, at the detriment to our environment.

The dangers of the mob are very real though, as many people's lives have been ruined (or nearly ruined) through some misinformation that goes viral.

hcurtiss4• 14 years ago

I guess the interesting part to me is that, with the advent of news aggregators and social networks, the internet kind of removes the filter. A blatant lie can take off like wildfire and burn a lot of people before anyone can mobilize to put it out. Maybe I give journalists too much credit, but before the advent of the internet as we know it today, these organizations (whether big oil or Green Peace), had to filter the information through some sort of intermediary first. Now they have direct access to millions of people.

cluda01• 14 years ago

"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." -Mark Twain

progrock4• 14 years ago

Isn't it about time we embraced the semantic web? At least then we'd have an audit trail.

rickmb• 14 years ago

If you are shocked by the "blatant manipulation of the mob", the advertising you see all around you every day, everywhere must put you in a permanent state of catatonia.

How come the combination of internet and activism is suddenly "dangerous", and not the pervasive and misleading propaganda we've been subjected to for generations?

Shell can no longer drown out the opposition with millions of dollars and now it's a problem?

tdhs783• 14 years ago

We have laws against false advertising. What specific false advertising is Shell currently bombarding us with?

hcurtiss4• 14 years ago

What Shell may have done -- namely, claiming jobs creation and downplaying environmental cost -- is something very different than what Greenpeace did here.

Mvandenbergh• 14 years ago

Reddit is almost comically credulous, show them something they want to believe and they'll be all over it.

Tobu6• 14 years ago

Please, no. Don't try to make us feel superior by disparaging the other aggregator. Even if there was a competition, blanket statements on a community would not impress.

Angostura• 14 years ago

And yet it was the Reddit comments that pointed out that the "Shell" Twitter account cited in the article is also (probably) fake.

kahawe• 14 years ago

> blatant manipulation of the mob

I am sorry but a LOT of the big, influential NGOs are very guilty of that and of abusing polemic and demagogy. They seem to think their generally just causes/ideals justify almost all means. Sometimes they are more clever to play their cards right like in this case, sometimes they do a really terrible job and it backfires like when they attacked Apple over the completely made-up energy consumption of a shared hosting facility. But either way they are and always have been consciously using rhetoric means to manipulate people or to at least be heard. This is nothing new - haven't you ever been stopped by them in the streets when they are trying to sign you up for monthly donations? The tactics they are using there are nothing short of slimy car salesmen and ripe with psychological mind-frakks. This is nothing the internet allowed to happen, it has always been there. But the "good old days" when mostly techs were using the web and when the general signal-to-noise-ratio was better are over.

sophacles2• 14 years ago

But advertising in the traditional way isn't blatant manipulation of the mob? Sorry, this doesn't pass the laugh test.

redthrowaway• 14 years ago

Wow. This is absolutely fascinating. With this campaign, Greenpeace has shown more Internet savvy than the vast majority of professional "viral" marketers.

I'm not going to weigh in on the moral aspects of this incident, as I don't particularly care. I'm far more interested in the mechanics of how this was pulled off, as it has huge implications for corporations, activists, and even political candidates. I could easily see some Obama supporter pulling something similar and creating a firestorm around the Romney campaign.

Love it or hate it, these tactics are here to stay. It will be incumbent upon entities with interests in online perceptions to guard themselves against these kinds of attacks and, should the pros outweigh the cons, engage in them as well.

mcantelon• 14 years ago

Greenpeace enlisted the amazing Yes Men as consultants via their thinktank: http://www.yeslab.org/.

noahlt• 14 years ago

A brief glance at their previous work shows that spreading hoaxes via social media seems to be their modus operandi.

waterlesscloud• 14 years ago

This would be absolutely suicidal for a political campaign.

naner• 14 years ago

I'm far more interested in the mechanics of how this was pulled off

Here's an earlier analysis:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholiday/2012/06/15/how-green...

I could easily see some Obama supporter pulling something similar and creating a firestorm around the Romney campaign.

Political campaigns already use similar tactics to create/shape news.

ams61102• 14 years ago

I have to say I'm laughing, I was completely screwed by a Shell-franchised service station back in 1992 and I have held a grudge since. I never buy Shell gas unless there is no other choice. Formerly I was a loyal customer, if I needed gas I would always go to Shell if I could (since then I've learned that gasoline in any given area pretty much all comes from the same wholesale terminal and it doesn't really matter which station you buy it from).

In the larger sense, lampooning ads is as old as advertising. They are pretty obviously not "real." Not sure why this is news.

bostonvaulter22• 14 years ago

I think threatening legal action over posting a link to the fake ads is overkill.

defen• 14 years ago

The threatening tweets are part of the brand assassination, not actually from Shell.

bostonvaulter22• 14 years ago

Oh, that wasn't very clear from the article.

potatolicious3• 14 years ago

This crosses a line for me. It's one thing to roast a company over a fire, it's another thing to impersonate them.

Tobu6• 14 years ago

Oh, I'm retweeting these quite knowingly.

iand• 14 years ago

The damage will really be done when Shell respond in kind and fake greenpeace campaigns spring up everywhere.

Disinformation warfare.

westbywest• 14 years ago

The article all but suggests that Shell actually do this. While part of me thinks Shell doing its own satire / misinformation campaign would be the most effective response (legal action would just attract more attention), I have a hard time imagining such misinformation campaign having anything but further negative effect on Shell's public branding.

Tobu6• 14 years ago

The journalist let social media brand consultants write about half of the article, of course they would suggest escalating. Shell raising public awareness of shills would be an awesome move.

nzmsv• 14 years ago

For me, this just makes Greenpeace look bad. I wonder when we will see an "online assassination assassination": a purposely concocted lie that looks like it is spread by another party, designed to "backfire".

jlgreco• 14 years ago

Honestly, I think the jury is back on Greenpeace. Either you already think they look bad, or you are a fan of their work. I don't imagine many people are going to be forming new opinions on them in 2012.

brc• 14 years ago

I dislike Greenpeace with a fervour shared with few other groups.

They constantly try and damage companies, which has a very real flow-on effect on peoples livelihoods. Usually their campaigns are built on a base of lies and usually over something the target company has very little control over anyway.

The damage they do to legitimate environmental concerns with their jack-assery is untold. In truth they are just a corporate machine built to collect more donations.

I go out and pick up rubbish, help monitor local wildlife and generally try and help out. This afternoon I told off a pair of kids trying to destroy a tree for kicks and made sure they didn't come back.

The only people I meet from Greenpeace are very unpleasant and a Greenpeace shirt never appears at local cleanups and volunteer days.

GeneralWaste• 14 years ago

I expect this sort of action from The Yes Men, as they are 'culture jamming' activists and this is their modus operandi. Considering the levels of influence multinational corporations such as Shell have on our world and on leading world governments I don't have an issue with a little impersonation to draw attention to issues such as these. I do have an issue with a charity doing this. Funds donated by Greenpeace supporters will have gone towards creating this assassination. IMO that's not justified.

rimantas• 14 years ago

I don't even consider Greenpeace environmental movement. For me they are just attention whores with unknown motives.

glimcat• 14 years ago

Clever, but maybe not very wise. Doesn't this open Greenpeace up to all sorts of liability?

You can bet Shell's legal team is already going over this in detail, and their response is not going to involve a bunch of retweet whoring on twitter.

noonespecial• 14 years ago

These guys engage in actual naval combat on the high seas. I don't think they're afraid of lawsuits. If I were a lawyer, I wouldn't go anywhere near either side of that battle anyway.

Maxious• 14 years ago

The vandalism by the local chapter this year has been hilariously misguided. They destroyed a GM crop experiment that was investigating the damage GM crops do, attacked a building they thought processed cage chickens but actually cut off the supply of free range eggs and destroyed fences that were protecting reintroduced native animals from predators in protest against culling kangaroos.

We must destroy the village to save it? ;)

rmc3• 14 years ago

In theory, yes, Shell could sue. But it'd generate more PR and more negative attention. Shell want it to blow over. Litagation will not make it blow over.

politician• 14 years ago

As funny as these spoofed ads are, isn't this exactly the sort of thing that libel laws are for? This is a fake site purporting to be, in fact, an official Shell site. I guess their domain name isn't hosted by GoDaddy otherwise the URL would probably already have been redirected to shell.com.

praptak• 14 years ago

The Yes Men have a track record of impersonating big corps, maybe they count on the companies deciding not to add more fuel to the fire with lawsuits?

cperciva2• 14 years ago

As funny as these spoofed ads are, isn't this exactly the sort of thing that libel laws are for?

No, not really. This is what charges of criminal impersonation are for.

com4• 14 years ago

Although parody would be an interesting defense. I suppose in some jurisdictions there might be a possible freedom of political speech defense too.

rmc3• 14 years ago

Yes, in theory this is against the law and Shell could sue them. However, that might not be a good PR move. Greenpeace might fight back, they could go to trial, try to get documents, make claims about "Shell trying to censor talk about their artic drilling" etc.

Shell hope this will all just blow over. Litagation will not help it blow over.

cubicle3• 14 years ago

Even the phrase "social media oil spill" puts Shell in a bad light. Devious.

Uchikoma• 14 years ago

I wonder what would people think if

a.) Someone fakes a YC startup b.) Shell fakes Greenpeace

We will remember this moment as the fake wars.

pessimizer• 14 years ago

a) If a tree falls in a forest? b) Congressional hearings, a revitalization of public interest in conservation, and Shell would be dealing with the fallout for decades.

danmaz74• 14 years ago

I just wonder why they targeted Shell with this new tactic, and not Exxon, the biggest oil company - is Exxon's environmental protection record better thank Shell's?

saryant2• 14 years ago

Shell just won permits to drill in the arctic, that's what the event in the fake video is supposedely celebrating.

D_Alex• 14 years ago

Aging oil and gas industry engineer/project manager and environmentalist here. I really like this campaign! It provides an effective counter to the millions (billions?) of dollars the oil and gas industry expends in advertising and lobbying.

In my 25 year experience, the western oil and gas industry is on the balance very responsible when it comes to health, safety and environmental protection. I would much rather have Shell explore the Arctic than say Lukoil.

However, Greenpeace and other environmental activists are good part of the reason why western oil and gas companies are so concerned about the environment. In places where Greenpeace has low influence/support/visibility, things like this are pretty common:

http://www.tropix.co.uk/region_files/azerbajn_03.htm

I have dealt with enough pointy haired bosses in my work to realise that without effective activism, health, safety and environment would often be improperly compromised wrt cost, schedule and throughput.

progrock4• 14 years ago

I'm still perplexed that Oil companies bother to advertise at all. What's the point? I'd keep a low profile if I were them. People don't really choose where they fill their car on the company do they? It's more dictated by price and whether the station is en route to work.

Good point about Greenpeace keeping the oil companies on their toes. Sad though that it has to be this way.

To me drilling for oil - is almost money for nothing. I'm baffled that these companies aren't behaving more responsibly.

Retric• 14 years ago

People did react to the Exxon Valdez oil spill which IMO woke the oil companies up as to the value of pure image advertising.

joshuahedlund• 14 years ago

> To me drilling for oil - is almost money for nothing.

You might want to learn about the high costs of exploration and building rigs and wells and all the innovation that has been occurring for decades to extract greater percentages of more kinds of oil out of more kinds of places. Something like gold diggers in the 1800's might have been a lot closer to "almost money for nothing." Maybe even oil back then. But any resource that was easy enough to get for almost nothing has already been used.

saryant2• 14 years ago

Please look up the cost of, say, a deep water drilling rig. It is not free.

Tobu6• 14 years ago

Re the low profile: regularly paying a large media group for ad space in exchange for no bad publicity would make sense to these companies. Large groups buy unprofitable newspapers for similar reasons.

lunarscape2• 14 years ago

>It provides an effective counter to the millions (billions?) of dollars the oil and gas industry expends in advertising and lobbying.

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. Oil companies continue to exert immense influence over governments because of the taxes they pay and the contributions they make to politicians and their parties. That's meant to be "countered" with mundane jokes on fake twitter profiles and memes on reddit? Forgive me for being cynical. If anything it's a great situation for oil companies. It gives people the illusion they're actually doing something when really it means nothing and the status quo remains.

com4• 14 years ago

He's not being sarcastic, I think. I've got a somewhat similar background and I agree with his stated view.

Citizen and consumer activism keeps the bastards (more) honest. One thousand motivated and angry citizens with a plan can act as a very good counterweight to hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing (and lobbying). Really!

Mundane jokes seem trivial, occupation of capped oil wells in the North Sea seem like a bit of a jape. But the effect of these and all the (cute) Greenpeace donation collectors is consciousness-raising and creation of citizens and consumers who ask hard questions, and that scares the politicians no end. It scares Big Oil too and keeps them (more) honest.

The status quo that you speak of is vastly different to that during the 80's and totally alien to the status quo in the 50's, at least in the rich West. Perhaps you've not really noticed the change. I've worked on and off in the oil and gas industry since the 80's and I see a vast, vast change both in the public's attitude, and also in the mentality within the companies themselves.

sophacles2• 14 years ago

Oil companies don't really pay taxes in the US. Or they do at effectively very low rates, but they are given right back in the form of subsidies. The power they wield is largely through the amount of lobbying and advertising they can do, which means they can destroy the careers of most politicians with a minor opex increase (and that is probably something they can write-off in their taxes, because of other laws they have bought). Essentially it's extortion.

kokey• 14 years ago

It's very true what you are saying about non-western oil and gas. People forget that the biggest oil spill ever was caused by a totalitarian government on purpose and not by a multinational oil corporation by accident.

In the west, corporate brands make easy targets, but since the companies want to protect their brands it is quite effective at making things better.

throwaway54-7622• 14 years ago

I'm curious / young / ignorant -- can you give me a link or name of the big oil spill caused by the totalitarian government?

ginko• 14 years ago

I wonder how relevant the public image of an oil company really is.

It's not like we buy gas because we love Shell. It's because we don't really have a choice.

cafard• 14 years ago

News to me. If it weren't on HN, I would not have heard of it.

dmor• 14 years ago

The the viral campaigners who made this revealed themselves over a month ago and this is linked to directly from the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InL4ONJh9fA

fowkswe• 14 years ago

This is stunt brilliant, but the truth of the matter is its not going to solve any problems. Don't get me wrong, I love that Shell oil is getting clowned, but other than possibly choosing a different brand of gas its not going to infect any meaningful human behavioral change.

As long as people live in a world where you have to turn on an engine to do ANYTHING - and participate in an economy that depends on and encourages over consumption, oil companies will continue to thrive. Humans will continue to burn shit to live the dream and humanity will carry on its march towards extinction.

Someone needs to find a way to convince people that using an automobile (or multiple automobiles) as a replacement for their legs is the real problem.

Shell social media oil spill a 'coordinated online assassination'

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