Spyware, fake news and more feature in investigation of reputation management firm
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The Post and its media partners uncover depths of deceptive tactics at Spanish firm
A Spanish reputation management firm conducted online “information warfare,” in the words of one expert, to alter perceptions of its clients, according to an investigation out this morning.
The story, written by my Washington Post colleague Shawn Boburg as part of a project involving more than 100 journalists from 30 news organizations, has a smorgasbord of cyber and cyber-related elements, from allegations of hacking to an Italian spyware company.
At the center of the story is Eliminalia, a firm founded by Diego “Dídac” Sánchez that “employs elaborate, deceptive tactics to remove or drown out unflattering news stories and other content,” the investigation found.
“It’s hugely significant that this stuff is happening,” Adam Holland, a project manager at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for the internet and Society, said in response to The Post’s findings. “This is information warfare.”
Eliminalia and Sánchez did not respond to questions for Shawn’s story. Eliminalia’s lawyers declined to provide answers to the questions in part because they concern “business secrecy or a request for information on customers about whom our client could not in any case answer.”
The investigation draws on nearly 50,000 internal documents, and is part of the “Story Killers” project of Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism nonprofit organization.
One of the company’s tactics is to bury unflattering information about its clients under an avalanche of…