Paul Sullivan, the “Wealth Matters” columnist for The New York Times, has published an article detailing an online harassment campaign that resulted in a rare jail sentence for the businessman who masterminded it.
He paints a revealing picture about how fake blogs were created to post false, defamatory information designed to ruin the reputation of a respected hedge fund manager. Like so many such campaigns, it was planned as retaliation for a perceived wrong.
It started in 2014, when the perpetrator asked a blogger to launch a “negative internet P.R.” campaign. He directed him to use search strategies that would produce the articles when people searched for the target’s name. He also paid him to use online services to send out press releases containing the false information, then “contacted someone who specialized in ranking negative articles high in searches, asking for assurances that the campaign would keep the negative articles visible.”
Over the years, the articles spread across the internet and came up high in searches, creating substantial reputational harm to their target. After spending “several million dollars on legal bills and security experts,” and filing a court case, he won. The wrongdoer — who faced $2 million in legal bills for the criminal and related trials — was sentenced to nine months in a county jail for criminal harassment.
Related reading: An Attorney’s Advice for Removing Negative, Defamatory and Infringing Material from the Internet, by Christine Rafin, Esq.
What to Do When You Are the Victim of Online Defamation, By David Klein, Esq. & Christine Rafin, Esq.
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