A look at 5 dirty tricks politicians and their campaigns can run online.

1. Black hat politics
WILL CRITCHLOW

2. @willcritchlow
All examples are made up unless explicitly
linked to real events.
None of the real examples in this presentation
have opposing politicians behind them (as far
as I know!).
I’ve chosen to demonstrate examples from the
perspective of the right attacking the left, but
all examples could work in either direction.

3. @willcritchlow
1.
Hidden attacks

4. @willcritchlow
What it is:
Attack ads run on platforms like Facebook that
allow demographic targeting and make it
possible for your base never to see your
attack ads

5. @willcritchlow
How?

6. @willcritchlow
Choose demographic targeting to avoid
your own supporters

7. @willcritchlow
Why it works
Attack ads are often designed to reduce
opposition turnout rather than make people
vote differently. The biggest risk is the negative
backlash of “going negative”.

8. @willcritchlow
In some cases, it’s possible (by avoiding
journalists and very political people in the
targeting) for the opposition campaign not
even to notice the campaign.

9. @willcritchlow
How campaigns defend against it
Use “honeypot” social media accounts with a
variety of personas in order to see a wide
range of marketing
Can also be worth social media monitoring to
find people discussing ads you never saw

10. @willcritchlow
2.
Reattacks

11. @willcritchlow
What it is:
Retargeted attack ads designed to appear
only to opposition supporters and only on
their trusted websites

12. @willcritchlow
How?

13. @willcritchlow
Step 1: create a site designed to be
shared by your opponents
I’m not claiming this particular article (http://dis.tl/IunQJX) is involved in anything like this

14. @willcritchlow
Step 2: add re-targeting pixel
Visit recorded with a
cookie on the user’s
machine

15. @willcritchlow
Step 3: run attack ads that are seen only
by opponents
Your advert goes here,
only for the visitors who
saw your linkbait.

16. @willcritchlow
Why it works
To the target, it looks like their chosen
publications are running attack ads against
their candidate

17. @willcritchlow
They can be made to appear everywhere
for the target audience

18. @willcritchlow
At the same time, they’re never seen by
your own supporters

19. @willcritchlow
And they can even be made to look like
editorial if you wish

20. @willcritchlow
News websites have unsold inventory and don’t monitor
the ads placed on their site
Print newspaper advertising revenue adjusted for inflation (http://dis.tl/Jb5q2M)

21. @willcritchlow
How campaigns defend against it
Monitor social media to hear about ads you
never saw
Source screenshots, details of platform
Shut down campaigns through the platform
and / or host website

22. @willcritchlow
3.
Wiki-circularity

23. @willcritchlow
What it is:
Getting negative stories to stick on Wikipedia
long enough to make it into mainstream press,
at which point Wikipedia is updated with the
mainstream press reference making it hard to
rebut.
See also: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-reputation-20-problem

24. @willcritchlow
Why it works
Journalists often trust
Wikipedia but don’t cite it
(because they know they
shouldn’t trust it)
Famous example:
http://arstechnica.com/media
/news/2009/05/wikipedia-
hoax-reveals-limits-of-
journalists-research.ars

25. @willcritchlow
How campaigns defend against it
Fast responses to defacement of Wikipedia
Obtain rapid corrections from journalists and
get them to update their original story so it
can’t be used as a Wikipedia reference.

26. @willcritchlow
4.
Rankslurs

27. @willcritchlow
What it is:
Creating websites designed to rank for
opposition candidates’ names or policies

28. @willcritchlow
We know this can be dangerous
Not suggesting Santorum’s issues were caused by an attack by opponents. Image source: http://dis.tl/I2pdO4

29. @willcritchlow
Why it works
People trust Google
Done cleverly, it’s plausibly deniable

30. @willcritchlow
How campaigns defend against it
Pre-emptively creating a strong online
reputation with a variety of your own sites
ranking for the candidate’s name
Close monitoring of the web and search
results
Crisis management

31. @willcritchlow
5.
Impersonation

32. @willcritchlow
What it is:
Taking advantage of internet anonymity to
impersonate candidates.

33. @willcritchlow
How?

34. @willcritchlow
Either:
Express plausible but damaging opinions while
impersonating a candidate or staffer.
Bonus points for adding to the conspiracy by
deleting public evidence as outcry begins.

35. @willcritchlow
Or:
Shoot for virality, sacrificing a degree of
plausibility.
For example, having a fake twitter account say
something damaging and retweet it with strong
“duped” genuine accounts.

36. @willcritchlow
It can even work as an obvious spoof

37. @willcritchlow
Or as an attack on a staffer
http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/aolf0/anon_posts_pic_of_himself_doing_drugs_at_work_to/

38. @willcritchlow
Why it works
More people see the (often viral) fake opinion
than the (very not-viral) denial.

39. @willcritchlow
How campaigns defend against it
Monitoring and rapid rebuttal on official sites or
social media
Direct approach to comment-bearing sites and
to identity services (e.g. Gravatar)

40. @willcritchlow
So?

41. @willcritchlow
Attack ads are nothing new
http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/political-ad-ailes-trippi-murphy-snyder-pick/232576/

42. @willcritchlow
But the web is changing politics
Faster than many realise.
I encourage anyone with an interest in politics
or the web to read this story:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/134/boy-wonder.html
This particular article is from 2009, but I think
we’ll see even more eye-popping things in the
next few years.

43. @willcritchlow
Will Critchlow
Founder – Distilled
will.critchlow@distilled.net
@willcritchlow
Will co-founded Distilled in 2005.
Although most of his work has been in online marketing, he’s
seen plenty of reputation management issues and spent
enough time with political operatives to get the inside scoop.
Everything in this presentation is illustrative and none of the
ideas here are intended to represent specific campaigns.
Will doesn’t recommend playing dirty political tricks.