
Shell social media oil spill a 'coordinated online assassination' - nreece
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/shell-social-media-oil-spill-a-coordinated-online-assassination-20120719-22bpe.html
======
D_Alex
Aging oil and gas industry engineer/project manager and environmentalist here.
I really like this campaign! It provides an effective counter to the millions
(billions?) of dollars the oil and gas industry expends in advertising and
lobbying.

In my 25 year experience, the _western_ oil and gas industry is on the balance
_very_ responsible when it comes to health, safety and environmental
protection. I would much rather have Shell explore the Arctic than say Lukoil.

However, Greenpeace and other environmental activists are good part of the
reason _why_ western oil and gas companies are so concerned about the
environment. In places where Greenpeace has low influence/support/visibility,
things like this are pretty common:

<http://www.tropix.co.uk/region_files/azerbajn_03.htm>

I have dealt with enough pointy haired bosses in my work to realise that
without effective activism, health, safety and environment would often be
improperly compromised wrt cost, schedule and throughput.

~~~
progrock
I'm still perplexed that Oil companies bother to advertise at all. What's the
point? I'd keep a low profile if I were them. People don't really choose where
they fill their car on the company do they? It's more dictated by price and
whether the station is en route to work.

Good point about Greenpeace keeping the oil companies on their toes. Sad
though that it has to be this way.

To me drilling for oil - is almost money for nothing. I'm baffled that these
companies aren't behaving more responsibly.

~~~
Retric
People did react to the Exxon Valdez oil spill which IMO woke the oil
companies up as to the value of pure image advertising.

~~~
progrock
There was a good TV program of a tear down of a decommissioned shell/esso rig
from the North Sea oil field. On yesterday (Sun 22nd July.)

Apparently there was a shift in European law, that now forces companies to
tidy up after they've finished. Brought about after pressure from Greenpeace
for Shell trying to ditch the Brent Spar in an underwater trough.

Quite how you'd do this with anything deep sea is beyond me. Worth a watch
though.

------
redthrowaway
Wow. This is absolutely fascinating. With this campaign, Greenpeace has shown
more Internet savvy than the vast majority of professional "viral" marketers.

I'm not going to weigh in on the moral aspects of this incident, as I don't
particularly care. I'm far more interested in the mechanics of how this was
pulled off, as it has huge implications for corporations, activists, and even
political candidates. I could easily see some Obama supporter pulling
something similar and creating a firestorm around the Romney campaign.

Love it or hate it, these tactics are here to stay. It will be incumbent upon
entities with interests in online perceptions to guard themselves against
these kinds of attacks and, should the pros outweigh the cons, engage in them
as well.

~~~
mcantelon
Greenpeace enlisted the amazing Yes Men as consultants via their thinktank:
<http://www.yeslab.org/>.

~~~
noahlt
A brief glance at their previous work shows that spreading hoaxes via social
media seems to be their modus operandi.

~~~
archangel_one
And traditional media - their Bhopal apology hoax was done via a TV interview.

~~~
raverbashing
you seem to have forgotten the words "fsking amazing" between apology and hoax

See: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI>

~~~
archangel_one
I was trying to stay fairly clinical about it because it's pretty
controversial. But yes, I did have a good giggle when I first saw it on The
Yes Men Fix the World.

------
hcurtiss
What's shocking to me is the blatant manipulation of the mob. Maybe this has
gone on forever, but seeing it happen in real time on sites like Reddit is
tripping me out. While I think my BS filter is more sophisticated than most,
on the morning it was released I sent the Shell party video to a colleague to
ask if he was there not realizing it was a spoof. Turns out he happened to
know there was no such party.

I feel like the internet is becoming an increasingly dangerous place, and
subtly so.

~~~
k3n
I'd pity them save for the fact that big oil has been 'blatantly manipulating
the mob' for decades now, at the detriment to our environment.

The dangers of the mob are very real though, as many people's lives have been
ruined (or nearly ruined) through some misinformation that goes viral.

~~~
hcurtiss
I guess the interesting part to me is that, with the advent of news
aggregators and social networks, the internet kind of removes the filter. A
blatant lie can take off like wildfire and burn a lot of people before anyone
can mobilize to put it out. Maybe I give journalists too much credit, but
before the advent of the internet as we know it today, these organizations
(whether big oil or Green Peace), had to filter the information through some
sort of intermediary first. Now they have direct access to millions of people.

~~~
k3n
Yeah it's definitely a double-edged sword. Like the person whose house was
posted to Craigslist with a "come and take what you want", which people
did....and only too late did the owner find out -- and of course, he made no
such offers. But the mob was quick to act and didn't ask many questions.

On the brighter side, there's quite a few exposés that we now witness that
would have never seen the light of day otherwise (or would have been relegated
to B-theaters, flea markets, and mail-order catalogs).

~~~
chmike
Maybe free speach has something wrong in it when taken to the word.

------
nzmsv
For me, this just makes Greenpeace look bad. I wonder when we will see an
"online assassination assassination": a purposely concocted lie that looks
like it is spread by another party, designed to "backfire".

~~~
brc
I dislike Greenpeace with a fervour shared with few other groups.

They constantly try and damage companies, which has a very real flow-on effect
on peoples livelihoods. Usually their campaigns are built on a base of lies
and usually over something the target company has very little control over
anyway.

The damage they do to legitimate environmental concerns with their jack-assery
is untold. In truth they are just a corporate machine built to collect more
donations.

I go out and pick up rubbish, help monitor local wildlife and generally try
and help out. This afternoon I told off a pair of kids trying to destroy a
tree for kicks and made sure they didn't come back.

The only people I meet from Greenpeace are very unpleasant and a Greenpeace
shirt never appears at local cleanups and volunteer days.

------
politician
As funny as these spoofed ads are, isn't this exactly the sort of thing that
libel laws are for? This is a fake site purporting to be, in fact, an official
Shell site. I guess their domain name isn't hosted by GoDaddy otherwise the
URL would probably already have been redirected to shell.com.

~~~
cperciva
_As funny as these spoofed ads are, isn't this exactly the sort of thing that
libel laws are for?_

No, not really. This is what _charges of criminal impersonation_ are for.

~~~
com
Although parody would be an interesting defense. I suppose in some
jurisdictions there might be a possible freedom of political speech defense
too.

~~~
cperciva
I am not a lawyer, but I'm not aware of parody being a defence against charges
of criminal impersonation.

------
glimcat
Clever, but maybe not very wise. Doesn't this open Greenpeace up to all sorts
of liability?

You can bet Shell's legal team is already going over this in detail, and their
response is not going to involve a bunch of retweet whoring on twitter.

~~~
noonespecial
These guys engage in _actual naval combat_ on the high seas. I don't think
they're afraid of lawsuits. If I were a lawyer, I wouldn't go anywhere near
either side of that battle anyway.

~~~
Maxious
The vandalism by the local chapter this year has been hilariously misguided.
They destroyed a GM crop experiment that was investigating the damage GM crops
do, attacked a building they thought processed cage chickens but actually cut
off the supply of free range eggs and destroyed fences that were protecting
reintroduced native animals from predators in protest against culling
kangaroos.

We must destroy the village to save it? ;)

~~~
steauengeglase
At the end of the day that's why I'm perfectly happy with Greenpeace/etc doing
their battling from the web. They get the ego rub they desperately desire and
no fingers are brought close to dangerous machinery.

------
Uchikoma
I wonder what would people think if

a.) Someone fakes a YC startup b.) Shell fakes Greenpeace

We will remember this moment as the fake wars.

~~~
pessimizer
a) If a tree falls in a forest? b) Congressional hearings, a revitalization of
public interest in conservation, and Shell would be dealing with the fallout
for decades.

------
iand
The damage will really be done when Shell respond in kind and fake greenpeace
campaigns spring up everywhere.

Disinformation warfare.

~~~
westbywest
The article all but suggests that Shell actually do this. While part of me
thinks Shell doing its own satire / misinformation campaign would be the most
effective response (legal action would just attract more attention), I have a
hard time imagining such misinformation campaign having anything but further
negative effect on Shell's public branding.

~~~
Tobu
The journalist let social media brand consultants write about half of the
article, of course they would suggest escalating. Shell raising public
awareness of shills would be an awesome move.

------
fowkswe
This is stunt brilliant, but the truth of the matter is its not going to solve
any problems. Don't get me wrong, I love that Shell oil is getting clowned,
but other than possibly choosing a different brand of gas its not going to
infect any meaningful human behavioral change.

As long as people live in a world where you have to turn on an engine to do
ANYTHING - and participate in an economy that depends on and encourages over
consumption, oil companies will continue to thrive. Humans will continue to
burn shit to live the dream and humanity will carry on its march towards
extinction.

Someone needs to find a way to convince people that using an automobile (or
multiple automobiles) as a replacement for their legs is the real problem.

------
ginko
I wonder how relevant the public image of an oil company really is.

It's not like we buy gas because we love Shell. It's because we don't really
have a choice.

------
dmor
The the viral campaigners who made this revealed themselves over a month ago
and this is linked to directly from the video
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InL4ONJh9fA>

------
bostonvaulter2
I think threatening legal action over posting a link to the fake ads is
overkill.

~~~
defen
The threatening tweets are part of the brand assassination, not actually from
Shell.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
Oh, that wasn't very clear from the article.

~~~
jacobolus
_"It also has tweeted repeatedly that the account is in fact a legitimate
Shell account. But of course, it, too is a fake. Not that web users realise."_

~~~
pyre
It's easy to overlook. The text of the tweet and the immediately following
article text run together:

<http://imgur.com/OHq5z>

~~~
corin_
One of the downsides of disabling javascript is that you may not see websites
as they intend you to see them.

~~~
pyre
I'm only using Ghostery, I wouldn't expect that to affect the main content of
a site.

Ghostery's blocked list:

    
    
      DoubleClick
      Facebook Connect
      Google +1
      Google Adsense
      Google Analytics
      LinkedIn Widgets
      NetRatings SiteCensus
      ScoreCard Research Beacon
      Twitter Button
      Tynt Insight
    

... just disabled Ghostery, and one of those _is_ affecting the article
content.

~~~
corin_
My guess is that Ghostery considers the javascript that is served by Twitter
to be a tracking device (quite possibly correctly)... but I could be wrong.

------
danmaz74
I just wonder why they targeted Shell with this new tactic, and not Exxon, the
biggest oil company - is Exxon's environmental protection record better thank
Shell's?

~~~
saryant
Shell just won permits to drill in the arctic, that's what the event in the
fake video is supposedely celebrating.

------
cafard
News to me. If it weren't on HN, I would not have heard of it.

------
cubicle
Even the phrase "social media oil spill" puts Shell in a bad light. Devious.

