Intelligence Gathering Services For Slander Or Defamation

Intelligence gathering services can get to the root issue of digital slander facing your business in 2023. One of the newest developments in the world of online defamation facing corporations and governments is “bot campaigns” or “bot attacks,” which can overrun your social media presence, skew your marketing data, or influence customers to take their business elsewhere. Social bots, in particular, have grown to be highly convincing, leveraging artificial intelligence to spread misinformation on a company’s social accounts and create a false narrative about an individual or company. Many corporations and governments are simply unsure how to adequately address these risks, but their intent remains to shape public discourse and sway their opinions.

Taking these digital risks seriously is the first step to protecting a corporation’s brand and ensuring that a business can properly serve its customers without the outside influence of bad actors. These bot attacks have proven time again to be very difficult to address, often ignored completely until they cause very real harm.

How Bots Shape Public Opinion

Public opinion continues to be shaped by the many social platforms available to consumers. Google reviews, posts on popular Facebook groups, and Tweets can accumulate thousands of impressions, subtly influencing those who read but never interact with such posts. The public continues to turn to social media for what they believe are unbiased conversations on shopping, corporate brands, and politics. However, many of these posts and comments are not as honest as they think.

Fake social profiles, when organized en masse as a bot attack, have the potential to influence those who see these disparaging posts. When left unchecked, they can harm your business, encourage others to spend their money elsewhere, or tarnish your image for the foreseeable future.

Intelligence Gathering Services: What is a Social Bot Attack?

A bot attack can include a number of disruptions against your business, either intended to distort or influence others or to compromise a company’s marketing data. A web of bots is capable of targeting a company or a government’s social accounts, flooding certain posts or online forums with information, all while drowning out legitimate discourse from real people.

In other cases, a bot attack may look to compromise your own marketing team’s efforts, skewing insights found through Google Analytics or inflating data on what appears to be popular social posts. When internal marketing efforts are successfully influenced, corporations could find themselves investing more time, money, and energy into marketing campaigns that were discovered by incorrect data.

In some cases, bad actors may leverage a web of fake social media profiles to plant false narratives or spread misinformation about a specific politician. Social bots can be an effective tool for slandering a corporate executive or influencing election results.

Social Bots and the Risk of Protest or Political Demonstration

Government agencies can find themselves in an especially difficult spot when bots take to social media to encourage political demonstrations or protests. Social bots can be used to ignite frustrations within the public, sow division, and turn people against their local governments. Sometimes, social bots can be used to post information that simply isn’t true to anger the general public and encourage them to protest. 

Complex bot campaigns can gather traction throughout social platforms and encourage others to misbehave, harm others, or take their protests to places like hospitals or key intersections. During political turmoil, bots can further influence groups to organize and demonstrate, creating risks to politicians, the government, and public property.

Social Listening and Private Investigation from AFIMAC

As a qualified intelligence agency and security company, AFIMAC can gather information to help identify who is responsible for these bot campaigns and bring them to an end. Lean on AFIMAC to listen to online conversations regarding your business, spot the risks of social bot campaigns, and ensure your business’s reputation is not harmed by organized online attacks.

Social listening should be part of your corporation’s efforts toward proper risk mitigation. Leaving these issues unaddressed can lead to especially difficult problems, including protests, threats against your safety, and flash demonstrations that can compromise your workplace.

Explore several social media intelligence tools that spot the threats of bot campaigns and actively work to protect your business or government agency. Consider monitoring mentions of your brand, the use of your intellectual property, and the conversations occurring about your business.

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Updated January 29th, 2024: AFIMAC can identify the source of online slander against an individual, or a corporation. Dig deep into the digital world by partnering with AFIMAC Globa and gather information that can support further legal action.

Learn More About The Private Investigation Offerings of AFIMAC Global