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Leaked files reveal reputation-management firm’s deceptive tactics
- colpabar 4y agohttps://archive.is/JWvqB https://archive.is/JWvqB
- dakial1 4y agoIf you search the owner of Eliminalia, Diego "Dídac" Sánchez, you get some crazy stories (in spanish): https://www.elconfidencial.com/tecnologia/2015-09-11/pederastia-mentiras-y-cuentas-opacas-la-cara-oculta-del-emprendedor-didac-sanchez_2800512/ 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 4y agoHardly a glowing recommendation for his reputation management capabilities
- at_a_remove 4y agoNot 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 4y agoOne 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 4y agoPerhaps 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.
- clnq 4y agoI don’t have to imagine. I changed my last name when I got married, as many people choose to do. It’s not a big headache. You could also do it for another reason than marriage. The effect will be the same. And it’s easy to do. Whitewashing is definitely a lot more involved, especially if it goes beyond right to be forgotten requests. I feel like most people realise this. I know people who have changed their names to “reinvent” themselves and no longer be associated with their past. Famously, witness protection programs also work like that sometimes. It’s just the most efficient and common sense way to give up one’s old identity.
- at_a_remove 4y agoSometimes, 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 4y agoI 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 4y agoHas the list of client companies been made public anywhere?
- pksebben 4y agoa more primary source, without all the ads: https://forbiddenstories.org/story-killers/the-gravediggers-eliminalia/ https://forbiddenstories.org/story-killers/the-gravediggers-...
- from 4y agoHow 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 4y agoSeems 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 4y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20230218232640/https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2023/eliminalia-fake-news-misinformation/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230218232640/https://www.washi...
- matbilodeau 4y agoPaywall workaround https://archive.is/xWFx3 https://archive.is/xWFx3 original article https://forbiddenstories.org/story-killers/the-gravediggers-eliminalia/ https://forbiddenstories.org/story-killers/the-gravediggers-...
- O__________O 4y agoSuper 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-boris-johnsons-bizarre-model-buses-claim-raises-eyebrows https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/26/mesmerising...
- itronitron 4y agoIt seems like that would also explain a lot of Elon Musk's antics, although that may be giving him too much credit.
- O__________O 4y agoDo you have any notable examples of Elon doing keyword bombing, media washing, reputation laundering, etc?
- Pyramus 4y agoNot 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 4y agoI 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.
- RC_ITR 4y agohttps://www.thecut.com/2022/07/elon-musk-tweet-no-sex-ages.html 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.
- __MatrixMan__ 4y 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 4y agoBack 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 4y agoI 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 4y agoI hope whoever worked for them got payment up-front.
- blue039 4y agoEven 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.
- SeanLuke 4y agoThis reads exactly like a posting from the reputation management company trying to salvage its reputation.
- RajT88 4y agoIndeed. 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.
- fuzzy_biscuit 4y agoI 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 4y agoDon'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 4y agoUnderstand 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/ https://gdpr.eu/right-to-be-forgotten/ that gives poeple the right to for free what your company charged money for.
- __MatrixMan__ 4y 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 4y agoPersonal and societal morals supersede government policies. Ideally, government policies strengthen societal morals, but that is not always the case.
- salawat 4y agoWhy 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.
- SeanLuke 4y agoHas 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.
- SeanLuke 4y agoI wonder how many of these websites are presently being used as citations to lock whitewashed claims made about clients on their Wikipedia pages.
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoI 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_Flyy 4y agoThese people run afoul of the ftc paid influencer disclosure regulations.
- youngtaff 4y agoI 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 4y agoIn 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 4y 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_Flyy 4y agoThe 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 4y agoReminds 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 4y agoI'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.
- dakial1 4y agoThis 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 4y agoThere 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?