Black Propaganda involves the use of the internet to plant malicious and false stories about a person or business or group so as to tarnish their reputation and to deter people from getting into communication with the intended victim.
It is designed to keep people away from those with something to say or a product to promote.
It is an old trick and very easily done, turning in effect the wonderful freedoms and anonymnity of the internet into a destructive tool.
The Black Propagandist merely manufactures a few web pages on which he writes false or misleading stories about the intended victim. it is essentially rumor mongering or the creation of whispering campaigns in cyber space. The malicious pages are loaded with the key words people use to google the intended victim and they thus show up in the search results.
They don't have to be true because the anonymity of the internet enables the black propagandist to say pretty much as he pleases, however disingenuous or vicious, without fear of prosecution - and without the person thus slandered being able to do a great deal to speak up in his or her own defence.
Sadly, the Black Propagandist knows that for his purposes he does not have to prove anything. He merely has to accuse.
For example, let's imagine you want to find out about the Pork Sausage Company of Michigan. You google "pork sausage company of Michigan" and there sprinkled among the search results, you see entries headlined "Pork Sausage Company Salmonella Scandal." and "Pork Sausage Company launders money for the Mafia" or some such thing. The stories are pretty lurid, the headlines alarming. So, naturally, you click on them. By clicking on them you of course help elevate them in the rankings and you then have the "pleasure" of reading derogatory articles designed to put you off ever having anything to do with the Pork Sausage Company of Michigan.
The Pork Sausage Company of Michigan may be an excellent company with superlative products but it does not matter. As you have no way of knowing that the stories are false and planted by a Black Propagandist using a false identity and in the employ of the company's competitor, Pork Sausages Inc of Detroit, you tend to believe what you read.
Your view of the Pork Sausage Company of Michigan is thus tarnished and you are put off finding out more about the company or buying their products. The Black propagandist working for Pork Sausages Inc of Detroit has done his employer's dirty work.
Another trick is to simply find an adverse comment about the Pork Sausage Company of Michigan. If he searches hard enough, the Black Propagandist will find one - even Jesus Christ had his detractors and even Rolls Royce will have someone somewhere who really doesn't like their cars.
There could be a hundred thousand glowing recommendations about the Pork Sausage Company and just two of its customers who did not like their sausages but it is the unfavorable stories that will get published and re-published, blogged and re-blogged, the favorable ones ignored. Then, when people google the Pork Sausage Company of Michigan, what they see is "I hate Michigan's Sausages says customer" or "Their disgusting sausages gave me a headache" or "Their pork sausages are dangerous if you ask me."
You get the idea. it is very simple.
The artist Ted Stourton is a case in point. You Google him as you want to find out more about him and you discover that someone has placed stories designed to create as unfavorable an impression as possible. The intent is simply to denigrate and ridicule the man and put you off from finding out more about him and his work.
Some of the stuff, from what I've seen is just plain nasty. This is a shame because by all accounts Stourton is one of the nicest men you could wish to meet. Undoubtedly he is a prolific artist and his work is of high calibre judging by the list of celebrities that have visited him at Camelot Castle and bought his work.
None of this appears to have phased Stourton in the slightest and he continues to produce top quality work and devote a good deal of his time to helping fellow artists but it seems to me a shame that a thoroughly decent man she be subjected to such sour and insidious treatment.
As for who is behind the black propaganda, I do not know.
A competitor perhaps? Someone jealous of his success and acumen?
But one thing I have noticed in scanning through the google results: Ted Stourton himself does not stoop to denigrating others, writing snide articles or slagging off other artists.
So whom in the end would you trust?
Some anonymous writer who hides behind the anonymity of the internet so as to devote energy to slagging off the innocent.
Or someone who just gets on with trying to create some beauty?
