How to deal with Internet critics and their attack websites

The Internet is littered with people who took legal action to take down sites that criticized their brands.  A new law article by William G. Pecau at Steptoe and Johnson goes through the downsides of the "sue off the Internet" strategy.  To quote:

In recent years, virtually all attempts to close non-commercial gripe sites that have gone to a decision have been unsuccessful.

For the agitator in me, I also read the article as a guidebook.  If I'm going to put up a parody site about an organization, how exactly do I do it such that I can't be sued and taken down?

Take a moment and forwad this article to your General Counsel as preparation for the day that they call you with the nightmare scenario, "We're serving papers on this web critics website full of lies, thought you should know if some reporters call about it."

Read the full article here [PDF] and forward it to your General Counsel!

Hat tip to the Consumerist for highlighting the article.

Background
Typically when a brand brings a lawsuit it attracts more attention than the original critic, creating what's affectionately known as the 'Streisand Effect'.  It's named for the famous singer because she sued to try and have photos of her home taken off the Internet.  The resulting litigation drove thousands more people to go hunt them down online.

Everyone, no matter how much they feel they are loved by their users, or how serious the work they do, has this problem eventually.  The truth is that when these gripes are unreasonable, the audience online usually gets it.  It's when you have a problem (usually a widespread customer service or brand value problem) that suddenly it seems easier to sue the critic rather than deal with the complaint.

After all, short of burning someone's house down (I'm looking at you, Verizon FiOS installers), you can usually fix a person's problem, and undermine the entire purpose for their criticism.  Nothing guts your critic faster than having to admit the company fixed the problem.

Does this affect nonprofits too?
Absolutely.  Nonprofits have become particularly vulnerable to criticisms in the wake of the fundraising scandals after 9/11 and Katrina.  A combination of fraudulent solicitations and unreasonably high overhead have sensitized the public to these topics.  This is what has created the call for greater transparency in the use of donor funds.

But what if the accusations are outright wrong?
Some brands resort to the legal route because they can't prove their innocence, such as when someone makes accusations about an event for which the facts are unknowable by the parties involved.  One example of this would be the Coca Cola criticism website, "Killer Coke".

For many of the students that have organized campus demonstrations in the past against Coke, it's unlikely they have any first hand experience with the events they are protesting.  In these cases you need to respond to the accusations, either on your website or in the press, preferably without naming the critic.  You want to play a careful game where you don't feed the media attention to the story without letting the accusations go unanswered.

What does all of this have to do with social media?
Actually, quite a lot.  Parody and critics websites are in many ways, a tool of the last communications boom.  Nowadays you're more likely to see a criticism rocket around the Internet through Twitter or Facebook status, as Motrin did, than see someone stop and take the time to actually build a website about.  After your criticism hits Twitter and Facebook status, someone will almost certainly make a Facebook Group about the issue, and from there maybe you'll have to deal with the website.

Nowadays, when you sue a critical website you're only squashing one mole in a giant game of Whack A Mole, and it's only going to feed the attention of your critics, by making you look guilty of whatever it is you're accused of.  "After all", many third parties will say, "if it wasn't true, why didn't you just respond with the facts?"

Can I use this to my advantage?
Absolutely.  From GWBush.com poking fun at President Bush during the first White House run, to Get A First Life, a parody of Second Life, parody websites criticize while making us laugh, and are passed around on their humor value alone while the serious criticism rides along for the fun.

Using articles like this one, you can carefully construct a parody of your political opponents within the legal parameters required to be immune to litigation.

And I hope that when you do, you'll call me to help you.

Read the attached article, but most importantly, forward it to the General Counsel of your organization.

Read the full article here [PDF]

Comments

[MLK]

I love the Verizon fail story. Thanks.