In one example, the search results for Ian Leaf, a famous fraudster from the UK who also goes by Ian Andrews, are being influenced by an Ian Leaf persona that claims to be an expert in fraud prevention. Along with adding to the epidemic of fake social media accounts, they also litter legitimate websites with false information.Ī BuzzFeed News investigation has found examples of executives, doctors, criminals, and even a Russian oligarch all benefiting from search engine manipulation campaigns to suppress negative content. These campaigns can pollute the online information ecosystem and enable people to hide important details about their lives from potential employers, customers, and romantic partners. It’s given rise to a global reputation management industry offering to cover up past arrests, poor customer reviews, allegations of fraud, and other character-killing online content. This is despite it being an early and powerful form of platform abuse, and the fact that search manipulation campaigns often rely on exploiting Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, LinkedIn, and countless other services as part of their strategy. But coordinated efforts to game search results - the method by which billions of people access information every second of the day - haven’t attracted the same level of scrutiny. It’s all part of an elaborate digital smokescreen created by at least one online reputation and SEO company hired to scrub the Rubins’ criminal history from the surface of the internet.īots, deepfakes, and other forms of media manipulation continue to generate global concern about their ability to erode trust and seed false narratives in society. The Rubin personas issue press releases, conduct interviews published on websites, offer grants and scholarships to high school and college students, and maintain profiles on major social networks.
Rubin’s sons also saw a similar surge in dubious online personas using their exact names and location. Her “about” page uses stock images of two different women, respectively titled “ smiling attractive senior businesswoman wearing glasses” and “ happy senior female hiker enjoying outdoor activity.”Īround the same time, three other apparently fake Adrian Rubins were making their presence known online via personal websites, guest posts, and social media accounts. Adrian Rubin announced the launch of a new website to share climate change research and offer “a rallying point for those combating pseudo-science and climate change denial.” Rubin described herself as a climatologist with 30 years’ experience who lives in Philadelphia.
But online, their good names have never been better. His sons also received sentences of roughly three years in prison for their role in the scheme.Īll three Rubins, who hail from the Philadelphia area, are now behind bars. Any old links appearing in a Google search will lead to Twitter's error page: "That page doesn't exist!" The old links still appear because Google and other search engines may not have the current information updated in their search index.Last year Adrian Rubin was sentenced to three years in prison and had to forfeit close to $10 million for running a payday loan scam and helping his sons, Blake and Chase, operate an illegal telemarketing business to sell worthless credit cards.