WITH blogs, social networks and fora becoming pervasive online, it is important for personalities, politicians, companies and even government agencies to monitor what gets said about them and correct any false information.

Guarding against false information early is important. Waiting for a major crisis to blow out of proportion would involve months or years to repair as the wrong information will remain in search engine results for quite some time.

Panagbenga 2009 blog

I received an inquiry recently about a company that is the subject of false information that had been circulating in online fora and blogs. The company’s first reaction was simply to ignore it and post information on their website.

Unfortunately, there were readers who only relied on what was said in these blogs and fora. The wrong information was taken as information that mattered, that was based on perceived first-hand experience that may have been hidden by the company. Eventually, the company decided to act but was uncertain where to start.

Here are some steps that companies, politicians, personalities and government agencies can consider:

Monitor what is being said about you. Use website tools and resources like Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts), Technorati (http://www.technorati.com) and Google BlogSearch (http://blogsearch.google.com). For the last two, results are often showed based on the latest information found. This allows you to work back and trace.

Once a link is discovered, you can also use tools like Backlink Watch (http://www.backlinkwatch.com) and Yahoo SiteExplorer (http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com) to find out if there are other websites that have linked specifically to the article that is detrimental to you and research further from there. The greater the number of links, the more you have to work. This will also allow you to prioritize which ones you need to answer or attend to first.

If you need to contact the website owner but the profile or contact information does not seem to be obvious, you can search for in blog directories like MyBlogLog (http://www.mybloglog.com). If the site has its own domain name, you can use tools like http://whois.domaintools.com, which gives information about the owner with contact details. If it is a .PH domain name, search for it at http://domains.ph, click on the domain and the owner information should appear.

Remember that blogs, fora and social networks operate in an environment of transparency, more than anything. It is best to post a reply or give information to the site owner to clarify the information. Assume good faith and do not resort to threats as they will do more damage than good. Only if you are treated unfairly, despite exhausting diplomatic means, should you resort to anything harsh that will often result to closure of any communication. That is in my opinion.