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.
On March 8, 2022 from 1 – 2 pm EST, I will present a Continuing Legal Education (CLE)-accredited live audio program, Managing Your Online Reputation: What Every Attorney Needs to Know Now, via the West LegalEdcenter. It is part of the legal solutions provided by Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals.
West LegalEdcenter offers the most current and comprehensive library of online CLE programs, including programs from the nation’s most respected national, state and local bar associations and distinguished CLE providers. They include live webcasts, as well as recorded programs that can be taken on demand.
My program will provide participants with the most essential steps for protecting and expanding their reputation and that of their practice where the world sees it: online.
Attorneys are often the first people contacted by clients who have reputational damage online. Your clients want to know what their legal rights are for removing negative content; how to identify the (often anonymous) attacker; and how to get it “wiped” away as quickly as possible. Now, attorneys are among those whose names, work and reputations may be attacked by deep fakes, online defamation, domain squatting and privacy invasions.
So, please save the date. if you are not able to attend the live presentation, it will be available online at the Thomson Reuters West LegalEdcenter for 180 days.
We all know the impact that negative publicity can have on a brand, whether it is your own, or a professional-services brand like a law or consulting firm. Negative information tends to be more clickable, driving search engine algorithms to put them higher in the results. And in an online world where a potential new customer or investor has an abundance of choice, one negative result headline can persuade her to choose another firm or partner.
That’s why online reputation management exists – to help businesses and individuals navigate negative publicity, whether or not it is true.
Maintaining a good online brand is not only about avoiding negative publicity, however. There are other steps that any business or individual should take, especially if they operate in industries such as finance, law, or security where trust is an essential component of any client relationship.
Invest in positive publicity
o Making sure the Internet reflects all the positive things you accomplish – awards you win, important achievements, etc. – creates impressions that help to instill trust at the moment a potential client comes in contact with your brand.
Provide information
o Whether you’re a business or an individual in a professional space, you possess knowledge that potential clients need. Sharing that knowledge through articles and blog posts helps to establish credibility, and it is an easy way to allow clients to get to know you.
Making sure that negative publicity is managed to have a minimal impact on your brand is critical, but positive brand building is just as important. And even if no negative publicity exists, investing in a positive impression of your brand builds trust and credibility, as well as acting as an insurance policy against information that could damage your online reputation down the road.
During a decade-long stretch of speaking with successful leaders seeking online reputation management (and being engaged by many), I’ve observed that the effect of reputational harm can be most acute when it threatens a new business venture.
When you are preparing to launch a start-up, you’ve often spent years developing an app, service or product. You have brilliant partners, a gifted team and the prospect of serious VC interest. During an immersion into preparing your new venture, what you may not anticipate is the amount of scrutiny you (and everyone associated with you) may face by prospective investors and partners, much of which you are not aware of.
Among the red flags they are looking for are signs or accusations that you (or your college-aged former self) have participated in behavior that may threaten the business in the future, including:
· Racist, sexist, or discriminatory language or acts, even as a joke
· The dissemination of sexually explicit material
· Threats of violence
· Other behavior that may be viewed as inappropriate by people vetting you
Not just you, either. Your whole team, as well as any partners.
Investors Avoid Reputation Risk
In today’s world, investors can’t afford to be associated with anyone with a record of those red flags. Their fear of potentially being liable in any lawsuit that may result from your past behavior, or your potential future behavior, is chief among their concerns. They don’t want the reputation risk, either.
We have seen tragic consequences for clients who have been perceived as being inappropriate in their language or behavior during college, upon graduation or later in their career. In more than one instance, clients have been named in baseless lawsuits, filed against them and later dropped by a party with malice, which still show up online. Some have also been cancelled or fired with no investigation or proof. This can happen over any number of perceived wrongdoings, and even if they did nothing wrong the harm to their reputation is the same as if they had engaged in the behavior of which they were accused.
High Cost of Perceived Wrongdoings
In these and other cases, high-caliber leaders were either unable to find a job or lost a job and could not attract a new one, despite years or decades of expertise in their industry. (Men, in my view, are especially vulnerable to such issues. In my article, The Reputation Risk of Being Male, I cite how even a simple misunderstanding can have grave professional and reputational consequences. But women are by no means immune from baseless allegations of wrongdoing.)
Deep-dive due diligence is increasingly done using AI and big data. Searches of you go back years, as long as the internet has been used, and once-buried information such as legal notices that were published in a long-dead newspaper, can suddenly become digitized and available online. Those pictures of you on college break 5, 10 or 20 years ago; the messy divorce; all your social media postings, litigation history, and complaints filed with regulatory authorities – literally anything you’ve done wrong can be unearthed and become a cause for concern.
For investors who are considering backing your venture, for potential partners whose reputation will be tied to yours, and for everyone you’ll lean on for help while you build your venture toward success, any cause for concern is one too many. New ventures are always a risk. A reputational challenge puts that risk outside nearly every appetite.
How to Prepare
However, if you have such issues and are preparing to launch a new venture, there are many ways to prepare. Even if you aren’t aware that you have these issues, approaching your personal online brand as if you do is the best positive publicity you can create for your business.
The first is to initiate a personal branding campaign to position positive, credible information about yourself and your achievements online. Next, if you are on social media, vet it to assess if it positions you for where you are now…and where you want to be. Making sure the Internet reflects all the positive things you accomplish – awards you win, important achievements, etc. – creates impressions that help to instill trust at the moment a potential client comes in contact with your brand.
Invest in the Same Reputational Deep Dive in Yourself that Potential Investors Will Do
Provide information as a thought-leader. Whether you’re a business or an individual in a professional space, you possess knowledge that potential clients need. Sharing that knowledge through articles and blog posts helps to establish credibility, and it is an easy way to allow clients to get to know you. It’s also an effective way to increase the volume of information available about you on the Internet. The more present you are, the more seriously partners and potential clients will take your new venture.
Finally, invest in the same reputational deep dive in yourself that potential investors will do. Find every negative piece of information, every rumor, every half-told story that paints you in a negative light. Those can be confronted through a multifaceted online reputation management strategy, and it’s always possible that there’s something out there that you don’t even know exists.
Reading my firm’s article, The Essentials: Online Reputation Management FAQs, is a good place to learn more about how an online reputation can be threatened and how to manage those threats. It is a highly ranked article on Google that provides step-by-step actions for ensuring your brand is top and center on Google, where the world (and AI) vets you.
The Beverly Hills Bar Association, a nationally recognized major metropolitan bar association, serves the 15,000 + lawyers who live or work on the Westside of Los Angeles County. With 6,000 members, it is the largest voluntary bar association in California that is not a county bar association.
So, it was an honor to be interviewed by Hillary Johns, a Los Angeles trial lawyer and Beverly Hills Bar Association (BHBA) Litigation Committee Chair, on the BHBA’s Litigator’s Corner platform, a YouTube channel with 1.26K subscribers.
In the 45-minute interview I discuss how online reputation management works, what aspects of it are most relevant for attorneys, and my work as an expert reputation witness in defamation lawsuits. While the interview is especially helpful for attorneys and law firms, the process of online reputation is universal and applies to all types of professionals and organizations.
