Anton Vuima - Darkness Public Relations

A classic example of this type of attack is the PR-sealing buildings in St. Petersburg (city in Russia)

Residents of different areas found out that parks and gardens under their windows are cut down and skyscrapers are build up instead of them. Basically, their outrage was limited by small letters to the court and, of course, it has never had any success. However, this case was noticed by the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg and members of municipal councils. They realized the big political gain and began to speculate on this, while helping (but not always) people to save their parks and gardens. That is in the harvest campaign 2003—2004, some deputies gained popularity only because of this. They held rallies, pickets and helped people with writing complaining letters, and delivered them to the urban governance. As a result, building companies have lost their fields. What is more interesting, many of these homes are fully consistent with all the rules, but the deputies, however, played with standards of illumination.That it was not constructed properly. And really, which citizen would agree that his house will be lighten by sun only in the evening and then only for three hours?

How did building companies of the city act in this situation? Most of them have tried to solve the problem with money. Thay tried to «buy’ district administration, municipal deputies, members of Legislative Assembly, the residents themselves, the chairpersons of housing cooperatives. So, basically, they tried to fight Black PR off with money. There have also been trying some several attempts to make an actions in support of «sealing buildings,» but basically everything was decided by money. It should be noted that at some points they were able to achieve some results through «buying’, but not everything. This situation reduced the popularity of Vladimir Yakovlev, who was the governor of St. Petersburg that time. Also, they invented a new authority in approving the project, using the «public hearing’. It is when, the builders were obliged to ask the opinion of the inhabitants ofor a future building site. And people can be against building on the very biased reasons. For example, some of the residents might just not like the fact that they are building a new home, where him and his children will not be able to buy an apartment. This form of public hearings in fact became a new form of getting money from builders. There also was invented a method with «red» people, who has been hired to act as a citizen and who needed to agree with a building a site.So the builders are spending more on it, and the apartments becoming more expensive.

At the same time, this problem can be avoided before it occurs, and even after the formation of all the problems can be solved with much less money.

Let us examine each of these types of attacks consistently. At first lets look how to protect against professional attacks. Of course, the professional attack is very destructive, and people who are not having a special training can not fight back. Many people think: «I have everything under control. The authorities are my friends. The press, too. No one else will want to fight with me. However, this is an overconfidence. Even in a completely totalitarian state, with the thoroughly controlled press, you can successfully make black PR against the people of authority. And it is not always necessary to use the press, because there is an alternative information media as well. Sometimes it is enough to write something on the fence or drop a letter in a single inbox. As long as people do not sit in separate cells and interact with each other – always possible to come up with a new way to share information. There is an interesting case. The large number of political prisoners were put in, but in different cells. One of them had a red shirt, he was pulling out the threads from it, and then catching the flies and putting that threads to them. Very soon the flies were flying with red threads, and the whole prison sang song «International» (a Russian national songof communist parties). Even in cells it was possible for human to disseminate the information.

Even the most advanced systems of organization of human society have a lot of holes that can be used for almost anything.

You have to identify the professional attack at an early stage.That is why, first of all you need to determine whether it is a professional attack, or it is something else. To identify the professional attack, use the following initial signs of attack:

• If you see that the enemy is trying to spread any doubts about you, but does not using direct incriminating evidence, then there may be a professional attack.

· If in what he is trying to doubt about, it is really one of the key features of your product, it may also indicate a professional approach.

· If you’ve found that the source of attack is a PR-agency or PR-specialists, it also indirectly confirms that it is the professional attack.

· Try to understand how long is the term of an attack. If you understand that this is the beginning of a large process, it’s likely that this is a professional attack.

• If the attack based on three basic components, which is a competitor, a professional PR-specialists and organizations, this attack can be professional.

Of course, there are no unique identifiers for such attacks. But with the above grounds you can understand which kind of attack you’re dealing with.

Now let’s look at how to counterattack the professional black PR. You must learn the techniques of attack and source of the attack and find out as much information about the attacker. To study the attacking side, you can refer to the detective agency. Usually it is much easier to win with having sufficient information about your enemy. With the analysis of information, you will be able to see what information about you will be used by the opponents.

Never begin to refute directly distributed information about you immediately. Very often, a direct refutation of the attack, can simply increase the efficiency of the actions of black PR, which are directed against you. No matter how obvious is your denials, there might not be enough to eliminate the doubts arising from the target audience. Rising of doubts is often the goal of PR-campaign.The information used for black PR is usually very hard to verify, and the more its verification is not available. Your arguments are not absolutely conclusive, if the audience itself will undertake to verify the information, and, as a rule, it wont be able to do so due the hidden inomation by professionals of black PR. This is a fundamental difference between mass communication and private spheres. If in-person exposed face arguments can persuade people of something, it is not always in the same way with a large group of people reading the newspaper or watching TV.

There are lots of methods of fighting off the information attacks. One of the methods is based on your participation in the attack of your enemy. We call this method – the method of false target. While the enemy looking for some compromate, you start attack rough. You throw off the information about youself in the source of your opponent. For example, information that youremployees are porn stash of drug dealers, and the CEO is a prostitute. It doesn’t look truthfull and In this mass of sensational accusations your enemy will look absurd. When you do so, the target group will develop immunity, and you kinda getting vaccinated against an attack.

A few years ago, the company LEGO got an information attack from the competitors. In response parents of children using LEGO toys, went to the association of parents of one of the European countries. And the parents said in court thet LEGO accusing them of using the characters in advertising agitating children to become racing drivers and drug dealers. Shortly before, there was an advertisement, where a character in the style of LEGO drives dashing among the toys at a very high speed. According to the parents, children are campaigning to race and be at risk.