Great power,zero responsibility

It wouldn’t have been possible for even the makers of the Internet to be able to accurately predict the myriad ways in which it could serve the purposes of mankind, or even go against them. The same goes with the kind of empowerment that social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere provides to the netizens in terms of expressing their opinion and being heard. From one perspective, it is an excellent enabler for the right to expression. But when this freedom starts getting misused to deliberately tarnish reputations with malicious intent without the accompanying accountability, this same freedom becomes a curse in disguise.

Corporates are increasingly realising the virtues and vices of the Internet and have begun to realise the importance of online reputation management. The growing word of mouth on the Internet via chain e-mails can bring about so much of a stir that Indian households may cut down on Kurkure for it contains plastic! Alarming? Yes! So it seems that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) did not check Kurkure's 'DNA' but the ethically aware Mr XYZ did burn a sample and saw that plastic was dripping out of the eatable. Pepsico had to go through a lot of pain to retrieve its image, including publishing a letter from the AIIMS doctor who had supposedly spread the rumours. The doctor denied on record that he was the source of this malicious propaganda.

Another very interesting instance was when ICICI was stung by a rumour, again spread via e-mail and blogs, that it was going bankrupt. The rumour was particularly damning since it came around the time when the Lehman debacle was fresh in memory. Suddenly, people started gathering in hordes outside ATMs to withdraw money. Another  rumour was circulated last year that a US broking firm had filed a $1 billion suit against ICICI. The bank later filed a complaint with the Economic Offences Wing and SEBI, and asked them to check whether someone had benefited disproportionately from falling share prices as a result (up to 5%). Similarly, in the case of Vedanta mine in Orissa, there was a huge furore of pseudo-activism that gained popularity upon the initiation of NGOs looking for popularity. This incredibly anonymous manner of propagation on the net can be termed as ‘Internet hooliganism’. All of a sudden, just about everyone had a word of concern for the tribals in Niyamgiri. Exemplifying the case of Lavasa, India's first planned hill city, social networking websites were loaded with comments and content despising the grand man made city in Pune and something that was completely left behind was the earlier word of mouth that regarded the project as one of the most beautiful and profitable upcoming projects in India. Post controversy on matters like environmental degradation and flouting numerous land acquisition rules, Lavasa faced standstill of construction and a huge slashing of prices on its offerings. Rather than about Lavasa being right or wrong, the real question is - who really gets to decide that?



In comparison with the western world, however, we are just getting started. Consider Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, which regularly faces negative publicity through a website called walmartwatch.org set up by the Centre for Community & Corporate Ethics. The company runs its own website called walmartfacts.com that tries to undo the negative publicity to an extent. McSpotlight website remains the biggest repository of information and criticism against McDonalds. The proponents of this website, who collected and congregated all the allegations and criticisms against the evil practices of McDonalds, had to face a trial in the UK and had to prove all the allegations were right. What followed was a thorough research to rectify the allegations for the trial and eventually the website became a sort of library with 21000 files taking over 120 MB of space. The material consists of transcripts of the trial and offers above 600 links to other anti-corporate campaigns. Interestingly, it has been noted by well-known activist investor Nelson Peltz that activists tend to target larger companies, as they provide far greater profit opportunities. And with new corporate governance norms, it becomes easier for them to target companies with m-cap over $50 billion.

Legality of the issue is not a matter of doubt. The problem comes with legal enforcement. Siddharth Lal, MD, Bruce Clay Inc, a reputation management company, tells TSI, “The legal process can be protracted. It is often hard to obtain the identity of the person who is being malicious. He could be using an avatar, or a different IP address. Practically, Internet users can't verify for sure that a certain Mr John who chats with him regularly and uploads his pictures every weekend of the places and people he met, is simply non-existent. Could it be wrong to speculate that the negative word of mouth about Kurkure could be just a wave of misconception promulgated by an inquisitive and immature tester? For that matter, it could even be a competitor of Kurkure, eying the spiralling rise in revenues and popularity of the brand and trying to blemish its name by its online activities. There have been numerous instances wherein the brand equity of a firm has been compromised due to word of mouth promulgated on the social networks, blogs and e-mails.

Companies are now realising that online reputation management can be an effective antidote, a service that companies like Bruce Clay Inc. provide. Through Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), companies can at least bring down the malicious link in Google results through various techniques; at least beyond the first page. For instance, they can open mirror websites related to their company keywords. Of course, regular publicity management has to be a dedicated task, as bloggers can navigate the Google algorithm anytime. Companies are also resorting to aggressively tapping social networking websites and running their own blogs. It’s all about making the official word get heard. As multitudes of different voices come up with various unofficial versions as per convenience, the importance of this particular objective can hardly be undermined.