Fake news is one of the main tools of information warfare. Hundreds of companies face this problem in the age of the Internet, and each solves the problem in different ways. Investment Company Euroinvest faced an information attack in 2019. Andrei Berezin, chairman of the board of Euroinvest, found a way to legitimately resolve the issue.
Employees of the company first discovered articles about a fictitious criminal case and searches on the web in February 2019. The materials were published on dubious sites without authorship and information about the owners of the resources was missing. This is a typical information attack. In the age of the Internet and “trolling” many enterprises and businessmen who have managed to achieve certain successes in their field and form some publicity find themselves in this situation.
There are some options for action in this situation: from ignoring (which is doubtful) to return punches. However, in the case of Andrei Berezin and Euroinvest, one can see that the best solution to this matter would be a response within the legal framework: an appeal to the appropriate authorities.
After the appearance of fake messages on the network, the chairman of the board of Euroinvest Andrey Berezin appealed to the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg with a claim to recognize the information contained in the articles untrue. The court fully satisfied the claim – see this attached document.
The court’s decision that has entered into force makes it possible to legally remove fake materials from the information field.
The mechanism of its work is as follows: evidence of false information about a person (company) and links to fake articles are sent to the two main search engines used in Russia, Yandex and Google. To do this, they have special request forms. If there are sufficient grounds within 10 working days, the search engines will remove the articles from the search results, and will notify you by mail. Done: the “troll” is neutralized, and you are not involved in the information war.
As noted by the legal department of IC Euroinvest: “Such situations, unfortunately, are common, and our company has seen from our own experience that the optimal solution is within the legal framework. “We don’t know what guides people who produce defamatory materials, but fortunately in our country there are legal tools to neutralize the harm to business reputation caused by trolling.”
