A successful venue owner is targeted by malicious actors in a sophisticated whisper campaign, using AI deepfake technology to clone their voice and make 911 calls reporting false emergencies at competing venues in their area. The actors then share redacted clips of the call recordings in anonymous social media posts under the guise of “warning the community” and engage a reporter at a popular music culture outlet to report on the allegations—using the outlet and its global platform to give voice to the claims while remaining cloaked as anonymous sources. The venue owner is left publicly smeared by false allegations, without any knowledge of the alleged events, the anonymous individuals behind the claims, and with no way to disprove them as they begin to urge the public to disassociate from the venue.
Red Banyan’s crisis team advised the business owner on countering the false accusations and narratives in a public response strategy—incorporating official records, filing reports, AI assessments, text messages, emails, and other elements to not only document their innocence and demonstrate bad actors’ attempts to conceal critical information, but identify key flaws in the media outlet’s related story.
With the efforts of Red Banyan’s crisis team, the venue owner was able to dispel the false accusations and online rumors perpetrated by the malicious actors, flipping the script in their campaign seeking to damage the business and fully addressing patrons, community members, and all external stakeholders. Even further, the Red Banyan team worked to advise the owner’s legal counsel in follow-up correspondence with the media outlet to successfully remove unsubstantiated claims from their original story.