Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore Your Online Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier

There was once a popular fantasy that the online world was a free-

for-all where there were no rules and nobody got hurt. This fantasy re-

lied on a belief that everything that happened online was artificial or

“not real” because it all happened through a computer in what seemed

to be a virtual world. As a result, many Internet users thought of the

Internet as the Disney cartoon version of Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island:

a place where antisocial and forbidden behavior could be carried out

without any consequences. But the fantasy that the “virtual world” does

not affect the “real world” is simply not true: the online world is part of

the “real” world. Real people and real lives are affected by the Internet

every day. Billions of dollars of commerce moves online. People use the

Internet to make real decisions with real consequences.

Some forms of Internet attack are particularly damaging: hard-

to-disprove allegations that are spread to friends and family can

make a victim feel helpless, sometimes to the point of withdrawing

How to Measure Damage to

Your Internet Reputation

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CHAPTER

151How to Measure Damage to Your Internet Reputation

from social contact entirely. But, luckily, not all incorrect Internet

content is damaging. Some attacks are never seen by their intended

targets; virtual tumbleweed rolls across the attack sites as they sit

abandoned. And some false content may be found but ignored—if it

is obviously false, appears untrustworthy, or looks like it refers to

someone else.

The following sections walk you through the process that pro-

fessionals use to measure the impact of false online content on your

reputation. Note that the source of the false content (whether the

content was created intentionally or by mistake) does not matter very

much at this stage. To a victim of false online content, it may not

matter whether the content was innocent, accidental, or intentional.

Types of Harm Caused by Online Content

The first step to measuring the harm caused by Internet content is to

determine what types of injuries are being inflicted by the content.

Some types of false Internet content harm personal, social, and pro-

fessional relationships. Some cause social and professional embar-

rassment. Still other types harm business interests. And yet other

types harm privacy interests or damage users’ right to quiet enjoy-

ment or exploration of the Internet, perhaps causing them to retreat

from social interaction and exploration.

Direct Harms to Reputation

This section discusses some of the most common ways that this type

of content can impact your reputation. Think about the ways that a

piece of false or malicious online content could impact your reputa-

tion; the more categories of damage that it triggers, the worse it is.

Personal Reputation

The most common harm caused by false or misleading online con-

tent is harm to your reputation among friends, colleagues, and oth-

ers. There are always at least two impacts of this type of content.

First, it directly diminishes your standing in the community every

time somebody reads the false content. Second, it indirectly dimin-

ishes your reputation because the false content often prevents people

from finding positive truths about you.

Social Reputation

Your social reputation is your standing among friends, acquain-

tances, and the community at large. False or malicious online content

has damaged your social reputation if it makes your friends whisper

behind your back, your neighbors gossip about you, and acquain-

tances look at you askance. Your social reputation affects your every-

day life in the community. It determines what your closest neighbors

think about you. It determines whether friends and acquaintances

trust you. It determines what social gatherings you are invited to and

what people think of you once you get there.

Often, false rumors spread quickly through communities. One

neighbor tells a friend, who tells another, who tells another, until the

whole network believes the false content (or at least thinks it might

be true). The content itself can be anything that would change the

perception of the victim in the community. It can be a false statement

of fact (“Bob has a DUI conviction” or “Bob was accused of mo-

lestation” or even just “Bob wastes electricity”) a false statement

about the victim’s beliefs (“Saritha is a Republican/Democrat/

Socialist/Nazi/anarchist/etc.”), a false statement about involve-

ment in some controversy (“Jose and his neighbor are feuding like

children”), or anything else. Even things that some people might

think are helpful can be hurtful: Telling the world that Chuck denies

the allegations against him often just draws more attention to the

original allegations.

Professional Reputation

Your professional reputation is your reputation among co-workers,

employers, and professional colleagues. It defines whether people will

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