We are used to Russian disinformation targeting, for example, Volodymyr Zelensky or the US presidential election. But smear campaigns of uncertain provenance are increasingly targeting not only politics, but also Western businesses. They are not only a nuisance for the reputation, but a real economic threat, which could be exercised by hostile states.
We are used to Russian disinformation targeting, for example, Volodymyr Zelensky or the US presidential election. But smear campaigns of uncertain provenance are increasingly targeting not only politics, but also Western businesses. They are not only a nuisance for the reputation, but a real economic threat, which could be exercised by hostile states.
Nearly half of Americans…47 percent—they think they see misinformation every day. So do 46 percent of Britons, 44 percent of Brazilians, 52 percent of Nigerians, 24 percent of Indians and 20 percent of Germans and Japanese, a 2022. report from the Poynter Institute. What matters most, however, is whether the public can identify the misinformation. That the public confuses facts with falsehoods and vice versa is fatal for a democracy. And here is a dangerous mismatch: Ninety percent of Americans, for example, believe they can detect disinformation, but three-quarters overestimate their abilities, academics reported in a 2021 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It is, in other words, easy to spread falsehoods, and artificial intelligence can make it even easier, or at least faster. It’s no surprise that misinformation creators are honing their trade and choosing potentially more profitable targets. Disinformation targeting individual companies is growing rapidly.
Ninety-five percent of FTSE 100 companies (the top 100 companies on the London Stock Exchange) were frequently mentioned by awesome posts in the first half of this year, according to a new report by communications firm Kekst . This is 35 percent more than the previous year. There were 348,000 social media shares of these publications’ articles on FTSE 100 companies, resulting in nearly 10 million impressions. It is likely that some of the articles were driven by the companies’ competitors, while others were the result of shoddy journalism, but it remains unclear whether hostile states are instrumentalizing disinformation targeting Western companies.
That’s likely to come, though. Disinformation today extends beyond mere bots on X, formerly known as Twitter. More than 100 incredible publications (including a spiritualist magazine, publications known to spread Russian propaganda, and far-right American and Indian magazines) regularly cover FTSE 100 companies, reports Kekst. What does a “not awesome” post mean? As defined by Kekst, is someone who repeatedly posts false content, fails to collect and present information responsibly, fails to correct or clarify errors, mixes news and opinion content, uses misleading headlines, fails to disclose ownership or funding, fails to label advertising, does not reveal its ownership and does not name its authors.
But in an age of credulity and infinite content, it’s easy for them to publish an article that looks legitimate at a quick glance, which then reaches interested social media users, who enthusiastically share their findings because they have neither idea how to identify misinformation. “We haven’t noticed this trend directly, but we are seeing the use of disinformation being used to force narratives that are malicious and being used to give market advantages to others,” Simon Bergman, CEO of Saatchi World Services. he told me. “This is particularly true when organizations are state-backed or operate outside the rules-based system and normal legal frameworks, and has become more evident post-covid and since the war in Ukraine.”
Juicy news spread more slowly in the 1980s, but the KGB and other Warsaw Pact intelligence agencies were still able to convince the world that AIDS had originated in a US Army laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland: an article in a serious publication was picked up by some media outlets, then more, and then the public began to talk The rumor about the creation of AIDS by the US military continues to circulate to this day.
The time lapse between inaccuracies about a company being published in a dubious publication and the company becoming aware of it is critical. And since most dubious posts aren’t found through traditional media monitoring, it’s unlikely that the targeted company will spot falsehoods right away. This gives the spreaders of disinformation a crucial advantage. When the company discovers the falsehoods, the stock market is likely to discover it as well, and because traders must react quickly, a company targeted by misinformation faces a drop in its share price.
“Many organizations don’t realize they’re victims of this activity until it’s too late and they’re behind in reacting, usually poorly and with little understanding of the intricacies and positives and negatives of rebuttal,” Bergman said. “A smart proactive approach to managing their own narrative and corporate messaging can help protect them from this kind of activity, but it depends on what they’re trying to protect: the share price, the corporate reputation, the stakeholder value or critical public perception”. In his report, Kekst notes that misrepresentations about corporate adherence to climate goals increased during last year’s UN COP27 summit. They are likely to do so again during this year’s COP28.
Undoubtedly, misinformation directed against companies is nothing new. A few years ago, a forged memo from the Department of Defense appeared to demonstrate that the planned acquisition of another company by a leading semiconductor company had raised national security concerns. Shares of both companies fell. This defamation is usually the work of a business rival. In a 2021 report, PWC explained how easy and cheap it was to set up such a campaign: “$15-$45 to create a 1,000-character article; $65 to contact a media source directly to disseminate material; $100 for 10 comments to post on a given article or news item; $350-$550 per month for social media marketing; and $1,500 for search engine optimization services to promote posts and articles on social media for a period of 10 to 15 days.”
Given this extraordinary ease, it was only a matter of time before state-linked outfits discovered that targeting Western companies was an easy way to harm Western countries. “Russia can use a company as a convenient target,” said Janis Sarts, director of NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence in Riga. “Of course the company suffers, but it’s not the main goal.”
There is still no forensic evidence that Russia or another hostile country is behind the rise in corporate disinformation campaigns, although a hostile state is known to be involved. fed the false findings linking 5G to the coronavirus, which caused fear among Western residents and delayed the rollout of 5G in many countries. The rapid increase in disinformation campaigns against companies, however, suggests that this is no longer an activity involving just envious competitors.
A fall in share price based on misinformation will not last long because the affected company will quickly alert the markets to the misinformation. But even a temporary slump is harmful. And consider the effect on a country’s financial position if several large companies were simultaneously targeted by disinformation campaigns. The stock market would wobble and global markets would begin to doubt the country’s financial stability.
I’m not giving hostile states a plan on how to hurt Western economies – they already know the secret juice. Western companies should realize that they are in the firing line, not because they are controversial in themselves, but because they are an easy target for disinformation. Communications teams should start reading obscure posts that don’t have author names and ownership details. Or as Bergman put it, “control the information environment intelligently with good technology tools and people who understand where and how to look.”
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