Interfor Academy is a new speaker’s bureau that enables organizations to book elite presenters for conferences, corporate off-sites, or risk trainings & tabletop sessions.
These experts include a former head of the CIA’s CounterTerrorism Center; a former Chief Hostage Negotiator at the FBI, and a former Head of the US Secret Service, among others. As a leader in reputation management, I am a speaker providing must-know facts and strategies about that always-in-demand topic.
Every Interfor Academy expert is a compelling and deeply experienced public speaker ready to take the stage or speak to your team on their own. Interfor Academy can combine these experts to create one-of-a-kind panels, fireside chats, and team interviews curated to address issues specific to your needs.
With close to 50 years of service to its clients, Interfor, a global investigative and security consulting firm led by our Advisory Board member Don Aviv, has developed unique knowledge and skills that its clients depend on. Now with the launch of Interfor Academy, Interfor is able to directly share some of those skills in a different way with its clients to expand their communication skills, provide essential education tools, and entertain while informing at corporate retreats, conferences, or other functions.
Whether you’re a conference organizer looking for that compelling speaker to keep your audience on the edge of their seats, a top executive looking to add a memorable guest to bring an unforgettable experience to your corporate retreat, or a human resources officer focused on training your team against security risks, Interfor Academy will create a unique and customized experience for you.
The sudden decision by Fox News to fire its biggest star came as a bombshell, inspiring numerous, sometimes conflicting reports about the network’s rationale. Although the sting of settling the Dominion lawsuit for $787.5 million and dual lawsuits filed by former booking producer Abby Grossberg may have played a role, it appears that text messages surfaced in the Dominion discovery process was the leading cause of Tucker Carlson’s ouster.
We’ve written before about the reputation cost of putting anything in a text or email that we don’t want aired in court or discovered by journalists.
According to the New York Times, that’s exactly what happened to Mr. Carlson. Redacted messages were included in Dominion’s legal filings, leading them to be widely reported by the media. Apparently, the unredacted messages were even more inflammatory, damaging Mr. Carlson’s reputation inside the network to such a degree that Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Co-Chairman Lachlan Murdoch decided to part ways with him.
This, when Mr. Carlson hosted the #1 show in cable news, pulling three million viewers per night.
Texting Never Safe from a Legal Standpoint
While the contents of Mr. Carlson’s text messages were reportedly shocking, what’s surprising is that he felt that it was okay to send them: that is, safe from a legal standpoint. (Reputational risk does not appear to have been a concern.) Text messages are easily discoverable, and even after they’re deleted both texts and emails can often be recovered by IT professionals.
Although most of us will never be a central figure in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit, our supposedly private communications can easily come out in more down-to-earth settings, such as family court. Lawyers often go after these communications, since once they’re admitted in court they’re treated like recorded conversations, making them difficult to dispute.
When private communications do become evidence, they also become public. That means every joke, every flirty text, every political rant, and every picture or video can easily find its way into the public eye. Many advertisers, investors and sponsors steer away from the type of red flags Carlson’s tests appear to have sparked, both for liability reasons and for fear of attracting reputational harm.
Tread Carefully
How do you avoid damaging your reputation by talking too freely on text?
The first solution is obvious: don’t say things that would cause embarrassment (or worse) if they came out in a legal proceeding or the pages of the newspaper.
However, given that most of us will say something to a friend, colleague, or significant other that we wouldn’t want the world to hear, we recommend using a secure app like Signal rather than email or text. Using a messaging app that provides end-to-end encryption prevents third parties from deciphering messages and ensures that when messages are deleted by all recipients they can’t be recovered. This is not to condone harmful personal messages…but just saying.
Recently, leaked documents obtained by Forbidden Stories revealed the inner world of Eliminalia, a Spanish reputation management company. Forbidden Stories and partners investigated the company’s manipulation tactics to remove public-interest information from the internet.
Interfor International, the investigative firm helmed by our Advisory Board member Don Aviv, blogged about Forbidden Stories’ findings. The excerpts below raise awareness of the dirty tactics used by some reputation management agencies, and why it may pay to steer clear of them. That’s especially true if they promise to remove online content, a challenge we have written about here (and here).
Weaponizing Data Protection Regulations
Those who have studied Eliminalia’s strategy identified a pattern. When an article that included unpleasant truths about one of their clients appeared, the company began by sending takedown requests to the journalist, usually through a team member employing a false persona. If the journalist refused to remove their article, Eliminalia went after hosting providers, often weaponizing data protection laws such as the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), which was created in 2002 to protect copyrighted content, and the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), an EU privacy and human rights law, to push the provider to take down the material.
To exploit the DMCA, for example, they would copy an article, publish it on a third-party website with a falsified earlier date than the original and then claim the real article infringed on the law. Contesting a false claim of DMCA is not easy, leading to long and expensive legal battles many journalists are unable to afford.
Investigators found that if these methods did not work, Eliminalia would then try to hide the material through “deindexing,” which attempts to fool Google into hiding search terms from web results.
Throwing ‘Digital Atomic Bombs’
Eliminalia has used the strategy of “open redirects,” links that appear to drive traffic to legitimate websites but redirect to other fake sites.
At least 622 such websites have been identified. To make the sites appear legitimate, the company mixes content from real sources with positive information about individuals with the same names as their clients.
This method seems to have been successful at influencing Google’s search results, effectively making articles that include allegations against the company’s clients disappear, while replacing them with positive spin.
Now, Eliminalia and their clients are in the news, and many of their “removed” links and content are back on Google.
Eliminalia is far from the first reputation management firm to create fake news sites to post fake content on. That has been done from the onset of this industry, along with a myriad of ways to post links in places where unwitting internet users would click on, thinking they were clicking on something else.
The problem with using reputation management providers who game the system using what are known as “black hat” methods is that their handiwork is often discovered and undone by Google. You also risk the chance of being identified as a client in investigative articles about them (check out the 2020 Wall Street Journal article, Google Hides News, Tricked by Fake Claims.)
As we’ve often discussed, nothing is more important — and brings more reputational power — than your personal brand. When we look back at those figures whose identities are etched permanently in our collective memory, very few 20th and 21st century brands are more indelible than that of Steve Jobs. The Apple impresario spurred us to “think different” and the world has never been the same since.
Now, Jobs’s widow, business leader, executive, and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs has been thinking differently indeed by way of the Steve Jobs Archive.
Look at this new website as the ultimate personal branding strategy — a “tribute website” like no other. It’s a living archive that carefully curates some of Jobs’s most lasting, inspiring “ideas.”
“With respect for the past and excitement for the future, the Steve Jobs Archive offers people the tools and opportunities to make their own contribution,” reads the website.
Including everything from his 2005 Stanford Commencement address to salient, prescient thoughts that stemmed from his appearance at the 1983 International Design Conference in Aspen, the site preserves the essence of the brilliant tech innovator for generations to come. Rather than a static memorial or library archive, the site aims to inspire future thinkers and leaders.
It also offers a lesson to all of us in how we manage our own personal brands. What legacy do we want to not just to leave behind, but start to build in real time? This is sure to launch a new trend. Yes, it offers a new way to memorialize those who passed, but it also sets an example for those living people of note who have a significant sway over our society — or simply aspire to move us the way Jobs did.
What we put out there for all to read bears a reputational responsibility. If we aim to have an impact that presents our best selves — and inspires others to embrace their own, in turn — then we have to be mindful of how we wield the power of our digital presence.
The speeches, emails, and private notes preserved in the Steve Jobs Archive paint a picture of a man who understood the full power of his words. Powell Jobs also knows this well. Through this site, she put a digital bookmark in place on her late husband’s brand. It’s a page that will forever be held open for us all to read.
It should spur us all to be mindful of how we manage our brands and choose to harness them powerfully to affect others.
For inspiration on the power of your online reputation, look no further than Jobs’s speech at Apple’s internal meeting in 2007: “make something wonderful and put it out there.”
Way back in 2017, the Harvard Crimson published an article about the college’s reversal of acceptances for at least ten students due to inappropriate social media posts. That trend has since escalated. Social media posts are now a top reason why jobs are lost, reputations are “cancelled,” and anyone who thoughtlessly posts something they might later regret may end up in a news headline.
After that Harvard incident, The Washington Postreported on another voided Harvard admission. The prospective student was flagged for “racist and vituperative comments he had made online when he was 16.”
Harvard is not the only college reviewing applicants’ social media use. All now do. So do many organizations. If you are using profanity, making comments that can be interpreted as racist, sexist, violent or just plain rude, you can lose that potential job, promotion or opportunity. (Own or launching a business and exploring lines of credits? Underwriters are now reviewing your business’s social media channels.)
Tips for Safe Social Media Use
If you don’t want to lose opportunities because of your social media use, use a neutral tone in your commentary. Avoid political messaging that might put off your clients or colleagues. Don’t offend anyone with a share that you might think is innocuous. Famous? Recall what happened to comedian Roseanne Barr, who was fired in 2018 from her popular program by ABC after posting a racist tweet. ABC did not want to be perceived as supporting her controversial views.
Don’t think that can happen to you? Check out Social Intelligence, a social media background checking company used by employers to vet potential hires. They review and flag user-generated content in four primary categories:
· Racist, sexist, or discriminatory behavior
· Sexually explicit material
· Threats or acts of violence
· Potentially illegal activity
“Why screen social media for your candidates? Reputation. Safeguard your hard-earned public trust with a reputation management process that effectively identifies candidates who might stain your name,” reads one message on the organization’s website.
How we — and our identifying information — appear on Google not just brings reputational risk, but powerful personal branding opportunities. It is also an issue of cybersecurity and personal privacy. With just a quick search of your name, it’s easy for bad actors to access your personal data like your home address.
Solving this privacy conundrum has long been at the top of security experts’ minds. What is the best way to scrub this sensitive information from Google searches for your name?
Well, the good news is that Google has stepped up by giving users more options for safeguarding their privacy.
In a new blog post, Michelle Chang, Google’s Global Policy Lead for Search, announced the Silicon Valley giant is making strides to give you greater control over how this identifiable information can be discovered. Chang says the company already had policies in place that gave users the option “to request the removal of certain content from Search, with a focus on highly personal content, that if public, can cause direct harm to people.” That being said, an ever more complex Internet means Google has to offer better tools.
Chang writers that users can now request removals of information like phone numbers, physical addresses, and email addresses from Search. Additionally, Google enables users to remove other information that could pose a risk for identity threat, such as publicly listed confidential log-in credentials.
“The availability of personal contact information online can be jarring — and it can be used in harmful ways, including for unwanted direct contact or even physical harm,” Chang writes.
Google’s moves address a need that has previously resulted in costly fixes. Many have resorted to services to remove this private data, ranging in cost from $200 to $1,000+ annually.
On his popular blog, security expert Brian Krebs explains the new Google tools come on the heels of recent policy changes that helped people under the age of 18 — or their parents or guardians — “request removal of their images from Google search results.” Clearly, the search titan is taking privacy seriously, especially when we are seeing a growing wave of hacks, ransomware attacks, and identity theft scams.
Krebs tested the new policy himself. He requested that Google remove search results for BriansClub — a cybercrime scam hub that has long abused his likeness and name. He’ll update his readers once he hears back.
For all of us, our personal data is the most precious information out there. To keep ourselves, our families and loved ones — and our digital brands! — safe, Google’s privacy push is a welcome move forward.
From serving CEOs and entrepreneurs to law firms and multinational financial companies, the mission of managing our clients’ reputational risk and shaping how the world sees them and their brands, remains our constant focus.
Keeping this in mind, I want to highlight the members of our Advisory Board. They are leaders and innovators who offer a breadth of expertise from the top levels of their fields.
Scott B. Alswang is a security expert with two decades of experience serving for the United States Secret Service, providing protection services for every U.S. president from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. He is Chief Sales Officer at Titan Health & Security Technologies, Inc.
Don Aviv is a security expert and licensed investigator with extensive experience in crisis mitigation, risk management and complex investigations. He is President of the corporate intelligence agency Interfor International, a global investigation, corporate intelligence and security consulting firm serving the legal, corporate and financial communities.
David Niccolini is the COO of Evidencity, a platform for records retrieval and local insight in over 160 countries around the world. Prior to joining Evidencity, Mr. Niccolini co-founded TorchStone in 2010.
Rena Paul is the co-founder of Alcalaw LLP, a women-founded law firm that represents companies, schools and individuals in crisis, particularly those involving sexual misconduct and other sensitive matters. A former federal and state prosecutor, Rena has 15 years of private and public sector experience in investigations, litigation and appellate work.
Christine Rafin, Esq. specializes in Internet, communications and media law. She is General Counsel – Media for a360 Media, LLC in New York where she advises the company on defamation, privacy, intellectual property and publicity issues for a wide range of brands, including podcasts, tv specials, online publications and magazines.
Jed Weiner is Head of Corporate Practice at Mei & Mark LLP. He advises emerging and seasoned companies and investors in corporate finance transactions, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, board matters, corporate governance, corporate compliance and other issues. He is the founder of grIP Venture Studio.
Their expertise helps us understand how to face the current challenges of a 24/7 information-driven age.
We have seen significantly increasing cases of reputational damage resulting from social media commentary or perceived inappropriate behavior in the workplace. The possibility of being canceled is something that everyone with a public presence must take seriously—and through social media at the least, most people do have a public presence. The damage occurs quickly, and it can last for years, with devastating financial and emotional impact.
Merriam-Webster noted the emerging use of the term “cancel culture” in a “Words We’re Watching” post back in 2019. A New York Times podcast on The Daily is a great two-episode feature delving into “cancel culture.” (Covering numerous important instances of the phenomenon, The Daily offers a detailed and nuanced examination of its history and implications.)
As it has become so easy to place material about oneself or one’s view in the public square, there is a temptation to approach it more casually. We advise carefully considering all the potential ramifications of your actions and speech, including the impact and potential response from those beyond your own communities. Racist, sexist or discriminatory statements are a clear red flag that often result in cancellation for businesses as well as individuals. Others include sharing sexually explicit material, which led to author and New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin being cancelled, and violent or potentially illegal acts or threats, as those who stormed the Capitol learned. Avoiding objectionable behaviors is of course critical, but we’d recommend being very cautious about commenting upon or associating oneself with controversial statements.
