Reputation Management Firms Bury Google Results By Placing Flattering Content (wsj.com) 53
Prominent figures from Jacob Gottlieb to Betsy DeVos got help from a reputation management firm that can bury image-sensitive Google results by placing flattering content on websites that masquerade as news outlets. The Wall Street Journal reports: Jacob Gottlieb was considering raising money for a hedge fund. One problem: His last one had collapsed in a scandal. While Mr. Gottlieb wasn't accused of wrongdoing, googling his name prominently surfaced news articles chronicling the demise of Visium Asset Management LP, which once managed $8 billion. The results also included articles about his top portfolio manager, who died by suicide days after he was indicted for insider trading in 2016, and Mr. Gottlieb's former brother-in-law, an employee of Visium who was convicted of securities fraud. Searches also found coverage of Mr. Gottlieb's messy divorce in New York's tabloids. So last year Mr. Gottlieb hired Status Labs, an Austin, Texas-based company specializing in so-called reputation management. Its tactic: a favorable news blitz to eclipse the negative stories.
Afterward, articles about him began to appear on websites that are designed to look like independent news outlets but are not. Most contained flattering information about Mr. Gottlieb, praising his investment acumen and philanthropy, and came up high in recent Google searches. Google featured some of the articles on Google News. His online makeover shows the steps some executives and public figures are taking to influence what comes up on the world's top search engine. It also illustrates that despite Google's promises to police misinformation, sites can still masquerade as news outlets and avoid Google's detection. Google removed five websites from Google News after The Wall Street Journal inquired about them. Google, owned by parent company Alphabet, said the sites violated its policies around deceptive practices. Google's news feature forbids "content that conceals or misrepresents sponsored content as independent, editorial content."
Afterward, articles about him began to appear on websites that are designed to look like independent news outlets but are not. Most contained flattering information about Mr. Gottlieb, praising his investment acumen and philanthropy, and came up high in recent Google searches. Google featured some of the articles on Google News. His online makeover shows the steps some executives and public figures are taking to influence what comes up on the world's top search engine. It also illustrates that despite Google's promises to police misinformation, sites can still masquerade as news outlets and avoid Google's detection. Google removed five websites from Google News after The Wall Street Journal inquired about them. Google, owned by parent company Alphabet, said the sites violated its policies around deceptive practices. Google's news feature forbids "content that conceals or misrepresents sponsored content as independent, editorial content."
"that masquerade as news outlets." (Score:5, Insightful)
Just my 2 cents
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My spouse watches a lot of 'documentaries' on YouTube.
It's amazing how inexpensive cameras and video editing equipment and software have become. It's almost like anybody can create content that says anything they like and then toss it up on YouTube.
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Those are your only choices you know.
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The problem with people who believe that is not just that they can't tell fake news from the truth, it's that they actually prefer believing whatever makes them feel good.
Democracy only works if the voters have done minimal grip on reality.
Recency bias (Score:4, Insightful)
I've mostly switched to using DuckDuckGo for searches these days and for a long time I kept putting off moving because Google tended to give much better results, but at some point that stopped and I don't think it was because DuckDuckGo got better, but because Google got a lot worse. Whether that was something they did or someone else figuring out how to abuse their algorithms isn't something I could say for sure one way or another, but there was a sharp degradation regardless of why it happened.
Re:Recency bias (Score:5, Interesting)
Google's algorithm sucks now compared to the early days. This has been mentioned here before. Instead of refining my searches, I have to dumb them down to the fewest words possible to get what I am interested into but I come empty more often than in the early days.
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Just my 2 cents
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Thanks for agreeing. :) (Score:2)
He had arguments. :)
You didn't.
You had triggers.
A need to refute what hence clearly were valid arguments to you. But clearly nothing to refute them with.
So thanks for showing that his arguments had such weight to you.
Please, talk more! :)
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The more you get downmodded without ... (Score:2)
... actual counter-arguments, :D
the more I know they agree with you, and hate it.
Americans are so easy to control with triggers, it is like taking candy from a toddler. :D
Astroturfing (Score:2)
Yeah, this used to be called astroturfing (fake 3rd party reporting & articles). It's really annoying when you're trying to find authentic information & all your searches return articles that fawn all over the organisations &/or individuals. The problem is, more & more mainstream media publications are publishing astroturf & "reputation management" articles. Wikipedia, CorporateWatch.org.uk, et al. are a safer bet when this happens.
BTW, Edward Bernays was the first to do this in the USA
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Wikipedia is not safe for anything that could remotely be perceived as relating to politics. They have an editorial team with a political agenda, and they often lock articles to prevent them from being updated with information that is contrary to their worldview ... even when it's with sources.
give us a break, Wikipedia may not be entirely uncorrupted, surely the managers, and editors, can't have whitewashed the entire site. besides, do you have an alternative? no, didn't think so ....
I noticed people who knock wikipedia are never contributors, you know, if you don't defend the truth, you will lose it
Lol. Wikilpedia ... (Score:2)
you mean the site that contained false information about a person, which was then cited by a news site, then that news site was used as a citation on Wikipedia for that false infomation again, and when the actual person that information was about tried to remove it, it was reversed and he was completely banned, "because we have a reputable citation!"? --.--
The site where original research is not only not an essential foundation for every argument ever, but *banned*.
The site where "reputable" and "vandalism"
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They most certainly do! (Score:2, Informative)
(I left of my own accord, and it wasn't the worst place to work at least in my department).
Reputation Management for Dummies (Score:1)
except of course ... (Score:2, Troll)
... that often the unflattering content is just as crappy.
DeVos's crime, for example, was simply to not be a left-winger.
Not saying that astroturfing is the right answer, but I can see why it can be tempting sometimes.
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I'm fairly conservative, though not really a "fan" of the Republican party in the same way people pick a sports team at random and then decorate their house with the logo. DeVos sounded pretty good to me when she was appointed.
DeVos needs to follow the dang law! She's ordered those in her department to not do their jobs, the job they are legally required to do, instead just sitting on applications frok citizens like you and I for YEARS.
If somebody in the Obama administration had done that I'd be ripping t
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Re:except of course ... (Score:5, Insightful)
DeVos has never done anything in her life except spend money and donate money. She has created nothing of value. She has never had a real job, until her donations got her a position in the current administration. She presents the best case for punitive death taxes.
DeVos exemplifies what is wrong with this administration.
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DeVos exemplifies what is wrong with this administration.
Like how Obama's administration was found to be improperly "converting" political appointees into permanent employees? https://www.gao.gov/assets/690... [gao.gov] You "Orange Man Bad" people are a hoot. You act like graft and corruption is new to politics.
Don't you see you are one of them? (Score:1)
You are not any different.
How do you not realize that they are BOTH horribly bad, and pretty much perfectly the same in all actully essential points.
Fuck "Democrats" AND "Republicans". :)
Vote YOURSELF into office!
Hell, if I wouldn't pick myself, I'd pick you. Yes, you. Why can't you be it? Who said you can't be great at it? Really!
Can't be any worse than any of the former two.
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How do you not realize that they are BOTH horribly bad, and pretty much perfectly the same in all actually essential points.
And that's why as much power as possible needs to be devolved away from the big corrupt power-mills. Education should be run at the local or state level.
They really meant to hamstring the activist federal education people with the DeVoss appointment. They should just abolish the Federal Department of Education. Maybe in Trump's second term if we're lucky. We went without a DoE for so long. It's only something that was established during the Carter admin. in 1979.
Re:except of course ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I am aware that that's how the game is generally played, but there are 2 problems:
1. Your example of ambassadors ("other than for major countries") actually shows how this administration is different. The EU isn't a country, but it should be treated like a major country, so the appointee s
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The inherited wealth. She donated a lot of money to Republican political campaigns, including Trump. So Trump appointed her as secretary of education - even though she had never been a teacher or a school administrator, or held any position at all in any school, or any government office, or obtained any form of qualification in the field of education.
You do not need to be an astute political analyst to recognise somethinga bit suspicious in that. Her entire set of qualifications consists of "Donated money t
Who the actual FUCK do you believe, then!? (Score:1)
So-called 'mainstream' media is all biased
There are literally 'fake news' outlets that astroturf for pay
'Deep fakes' are an actual Thing now
Foreign nationals running ops on the general public via so-called 'social media'
Seriously: who the fuck do you believe anymore!? Do I have to be boots-on-the-ground myself?
Beyond ridiculous.
You don't. (Score:1)
See, you were thinking inside that box.
Not to worry. It is part.of being human.
But: You should not *believe* *at all*. Period.
What you can and should usually *trust*, is your senses. Of course you should be aware of sensory illusions and distortions. But without that, how do you even define "real"?
And of course, you should also be aware of that sensory input being biased by your brain. (That *is* your brain's point, after all...) A bias, based on all previous experiences, plus whatever chemicals entered you
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I reject the notion that 'no news service can be trusted to be honest and factual'. I reserve th
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So Google is NOT a "common carrier". (Score:3)
They are not a search engine.
But an information outlet with curating editorial staff.
Can we please just have a search engine again? That merely mirrors the web. So if you want something gone, you remove IT, not smash the mirror and let the original stay, like a moron.
And no, Startpage.com stopped being an
option, when a data mining ad company took over their board.
P.S.: And yes, I agree, doing shit like that guy did, is fraud, and hence a crime. It is very likely that he'll keep acting like a piece of shit. Especially since it is basically a corner stone of the definition of his industry.
But I also agree that we should forgive people after some time, and allow to forget, so they get a chance to change, instead of being kept pressed into the old mold forever. Hence permanent records are a big problem.
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No. We tried that. It's too much data, and search engines are too easily manipulated. Without a team of people behind the scenes constantly adjusting the search process (and inevitably inserting their own biases) the results page would be a mixture of spam, porn, adverts for viagra, conspiracy theories, and keyword stuffing. You want to see a search engine, just look on ebay for the "headphones Airphones airpods sony apple samsung google android ios nokia microsoft bluetooth headset" - where sellers cram ev
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I think that's the idea.
The understanding we're all coming to is that everything on the web today is essentially some type of spam or pornography. By filtering, we've fooled everyone, including ourselves, into the incorrect belief that what we're reading is not explicitly designed to market an idea or a product to us. It would be better if we had the brutal honesty of the less sophisticated marketers included with the current results to remind ourselves of what the internet really is.
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If you have dozens of yachts like Betsy (Score:2)
You'll need some flattering.
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Why post paywalled articles? (Score:1)