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How to deal with
the risk of online
falsehoods
Deliberately false online nline falsehoods can have a
negative impact not only on
content is harder to individuals but on businesses
as well. The spread of false
spot than you think. Oinformation can carry
Here are seven tactics financial and reputational risks.
Unlike misinformation, which is
to counter the threat incorrect and misleading but may not be
of disinformation and intentional, digital disinformation
campaigns targeting companies are
control the potential always intentional and harmful. And they
damage your business are rampant.
In one example, an article published
may incur. on a financial website contained several
falsehoods about Farmland Partners Inc.,
a publicly traded US company, and caused
By Anita Dennis a 39% drop in its stock price in one day,
the company said. In a 2021 settlement
with the company, the author
acknowledged that the article was part of
a “short and distort” scheme, a stock
manipulation that enables a scammer to
profit when a company’s stock falls.
In another instance, one company’s
share price tumbled 28% before trading
was temporarily halted and another
company’s share price dropped 16% after
a trader in Scotland tweeted false
information to benefit from the price
swings, according to the US Securities and
Exchange Commission.
Share price manipulation is just one of
many risks businesses face when they are
hit by a disinformation effort. Investors
and consumers may rely on online
sources for their news, and they may have IMAGE BY OTTO STEININGER/IKON IMAGES
difficulty separating fact from fiction.
Seven in ten respondents in a survey the
UK Office of Communications (Ofcom)
conducted this year were confident they
could spot incorrect information, but
FM-MAGAZINE.COM August 2022 I FM MAGAZINE I 9
