Businesses are facing an uptick in smear campaigns as AI is making it quicker, easier, and cheaper to spread misinformation, with a law firm warning that campaigns will increase further.
According to data from Schillings, a multidisciplinary reputation and privacy consultancy, shared with City AM, there has been a 150 per cent increase in smear campaigns targeting successful businesses and individuals over the past three years.
Juliet Young, partner at Schillings, explained: “Today, the tactics and tools required to run a smear campaign are accessible to a very broad range of people all over the world and with varying financial resources.”
“We’ve seen how they can be started with as little as £50, an internet connection, a bit of technical expertise, and a motive. Despite the low cost and relative ease of instigation, they can significantly and quickly impact a business’s reputation, operations, and finances,” she added.
A range of groups, such as disgruntled former employees, competitors, and activists often instigates smear campaigns against a business.
The firm has also found smear campaigns being used to encourage parties to settle during legal proceedings in exchange for facing the prospect of sustained reputational damage.
Schillings explained that smear campaigns are sophisticated multi-channel affairs, utilising pay-to-play ‘junk news’ sites, bot accounts on social media, and even AI-generated deepfakes.
A campaign can quickly influence Google results, which, left untouched, can lead to loss of business, a drop in share price, or a compliance risk in a deal.
AI increased sophistication
Young highlighted that many of the campaigns the firm is dealing with on behalf of clients now involve disinformation generated by AI models.
“At one level, this includes deepfaked images of false newspaper headlines to gather grassroots attention. At a more sophisticated level, the content includes ‘red flag’ terms designed to be picked up by banks and compliance databases,” she explained.
With the wave of AI making it easier and cheaper for people to smear a business, responding is now neither easy nor cheap for the business.
Young stated: “The ability to seed these campaigns anonymously, combined with the scale of some of these campaigns, means addressing them is complex.”
Due to the significant impact smears can have on businesses, Young advised that an efficient response involves using investigators, lawyers, and communications professionals who work in sync to deconstruct and evidence the campaign, remove and challenge disinformation using legal tools, and correct the narrative.
She added that “using a combination of investigative and legal tools, it is possible in some cases to identify digital fingerprints and take action to address them”.