Paris (AFP)
False press releases, ultra-realistic websites, mock press conferences: activists, environmentalists in particular, are now imitating corporate communication to get their messages across, even if it means misleading the media. infox time.
"Some activists believe that all blows are allowed to defend their causes but I think they are wrong," Nicolas Vanderbiest, e-reputation specialist and author of the Reputatio Lab site, told AFP.
"They are putting their relations with the media at stake, the first victims of these hoaxes," he adds.
The example was given Monday in Paris: a false representative of TotalEnergies exposed in front of a few real journalists aware of the hoax a project to relocate wild animals from Africa to France, in order to allow the construction of a pipeline.
"We use humor, satire and creativity to expose real problems. When you think about it, we announced the importation of animals from an entire African ecosystem to France ... it's ridiculous, it is was obvious that it was a hoax ", defends Natalie Whiteman, member of the American group" The Fixers ", to AFP.
For his sidekick Jeff Walburn, "the real + fake news + is the one that the TotalEnergies group has been spreading through its greenwashing campaigns for years".
Both are former members of "Yes Men", an American group author of several activist hoaxes like a false press release released in 2010 on behalf of Chevron, American oil giant.
Their rhetoric is reminiscent of the environmental movement Fridays for Future.
Four young activists invited international journalists to a fake online press conference with Standard Chartered Bank last May and announced the end of their investments in fossil fuels, while warning them of the deception.
"We are tired of hearing this bank claim to defend sustainable development while it pursues a policy of greenwashing," said Leonie Bremer, one of the organizers, to AFP.
"We had decided to announce to the press what Standard Chartered should have announced itself," she said.
Alexandre Alaphilippe, director of the NGO "EU disinfolab", relativizes the danger: "Some hoaxes are so satirical that there is little risk that they affect our understanding", according to him.
But some "more ambiguous" actions, such as a false statement from the Extinction Rebellion movement released in the summer of 2020, may be "on the borderline between hoax and disinformation."
Beware of hoax: Standard Chartered ceases its investments in fossil fuels, according to a false statement from Etinction Rebellion released in the summer of 2020 KAREN BLEIER AFP / Archives
This press release, supported by a very realistic site, announced that the Swedish company was withdrawing its investments in fossil fuels and had managed to fool several media including AFP.
"The defense of the environment is struggling to appear in the flow of information, which is why activists resort to this kind of artifice, as a pretext, to talk about their causes," explains Nicolas Vanderbiest.
- Speculative manipulations -
Environmental activists are not the only ones to use this infox.
In 2016, Vinci, the large French construction group, was the victim of the dissemination of a false press release in its name.
Taken up by several media including the American agency Bloomberg, the false press release caused the group's share price to fall by 18% in a few minutes.
Fraudsters were able to take advantage of variations in Vinci's share price to profit from them.
But the investigation conducted by the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) failed to establish the identity of the authors of the press release.
A press release signed by anonymous people presenting themselves as opponents of the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport project, of which Vinci was to be the builder, did claim the infox, but the AMF did not accept this hypothesis .
Condemned by the AMF, Bloomberg appealed to the Paris Court of Appeal, which on Thursday confirmed the agency's responsibility in this case while reducing the amount of the fine from five to three million euros. that the AMF had inflicted on it.
According to Raphaël Labbé, director of the company Wiztrust which develops solutions for authenticating press releases, these manipulations by hackers have been increasing in recent years.
"For speculative purposes, hackers use news feeds that automatically disseminate press releases," he says.
In 2016, Vinci was the victim of a fake press release on his behalf.
Taken up by the media, the fake press release dropped the group's share price by 18% in a few minutes THOMAS SAMSON AFP / Archives
For their part, false press releases from environmental activists are part of a long tradition of hoaxes.
But they are more in the spotlight today through the effect of social networks.
And "they use websites complete with striking images", analyzes Mr. Labbé to AFP.
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